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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/34801-8.txt b/34801-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d694173 --- /dev/null +++ b/34801-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14295 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Why Joan?, by Eleanor Mercein Kelly + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Why Joan? + +Author: Eleanor Mercein Kelly + +Release Date: December 31, 2010 [EBook #34801] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHY JOAN? *** + + + + +Produced by David Garcia, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) + + + + + + + + + + WHY JOAN? + + BY ELEANOR MERCEIN KELLY + + Author of "KILDARES OF STORM," etc. + + + NEW YORK + THE CENTURY CO. + 1919 + + Copyright, 1919, by + THE CENTURY CO. + + _Published, March, 1919_ + + TO + MRS. RICHARD W. KNOTT + friend and neighbor to many young + women such as JOAN, whom she + has helped to find the why of themselves; + and whose life principle may + be summed up in Virgil's phrase + + _Paulo majora canamus_-- + + (Let us sing of higher things.) + + + Aime-moi, parce que j'ai besoin de ton amour pour mes chansons, + Va t'en, parce que j'ai besoin de pleurer pour mes chansons, + Meurs, parce que j'ai besoin de chanter la mort pour mes chansons, + Car je suis le Cobzar. + + _Quoted by Pierre de Coulevain from source unknown._ + +Rough translation: + + Love me, because I have need of love for my songs, + Leave me, because I have need of tears for my songs, + Die, for I have need to sing of death in my songs, + For I am the Cobzar. + + +[Illustration] + + + + +FOREWORD + + +Some time since, the author had the temerity innocently to publish a +book ("Kildares of Storm"), which, like this one, employed for +background the country with which she happens to be most familiar, the +State of her adoption and of her affections. And great was the scandal +thereof. Neighbors insisted upon recognising themselves in it, to their +horror--or to their complacency, as the case might be. They also +recognized the house described; although if one heard with impartial +ear, the house appeared to possess as many different identities as +localities, and despite the fact that the author, in order to guard +against this very contingency, had taken many liberties with geography, +even to the extent of moving mountains--imagination being on occasion +almost as powerful as faith. + +That history may not repeat itself, the author now hastens to assert +that no self-respecting creative instinct, with the whole world of fancy +at command, would care to inhibit productivity by the limitations +imposed upon photography, invaluable as that science is in its +place--which is not fiction. Ours the happy privilege of, for the moment +at least, "shattering the world to bits and remolding it nearer to the +heart's desire." + +There is also among the craft an unwritten law against the holding up +for public inspection those people with whom one has broken bread, so to +speak; and as one is apt, in Kentucky, to have broken bread with all +one's acquaintance, neighbors, friends and enemies may alike consider +themselves safe from the present pen. If any think to recognize +themselves in this book, let them recognize themselves quite as readily +in the living people about them. For we are, after all, of one +substance, varying only with circumstance and the different stages of +development. And it is with these things only--with circumstance and the +stages of development, with truths rather than facts, with men and women +rather than personalities--that this author at least chooses to concern +herself. + +ELEANOR MERCEIN KELLY. + + + + +WHY JOAN? + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +Young Joan Darcy leaned back luxuriously upon a cushion offered by the +obsequious porter (servants were usually obsequious with Joan, though +she was not at all beautiful and rather too shabby to promise much in +the way of largesse), watching the world go by with a dreamy, detached, +yet oddly observant gaze that missed no detail of the landscape through +which she passed and registered it in her subconscious mind for future +reference. It was a convenient receptacle, her subconscious mind--a sort +of strongbox into which went many things valuable and valueless, to be +brought forth when occasion required, quite intact. She tucked away in +it now not only the rushing landscape but the various people about her +in the Pullman: a dapper person, probably a necktie drummer, who had for +some time been discreetly taking notice and whom it was her pleasure to +occasionally regard as if he were so much thin air; an elderly lady who +beamed wistfully whenever their eyes met, and who, Joan decided, would +presently summon up courage to inform her that a little daughter, had +she lived, would have been about Joan's age; also another girl, dressed +as Joan would have liked to be dressed herself, who cast occasional +glances of indifference in her direction, noting, it was to be hoped, +the affluent litter of magazines and papers that surrounded our heroine, +the fading bouquet tucked into her belt, and the expensive box of +chocolates which lay open upon her knee, exposing to the world at large +a masculine card on top. + +Joan discovered within herself a certain impersonal, appreciative +antagonism toward strange young women, such as knights may have felt who +met for combat upon the jousting field. Envy was the one tribute which +most assuaged her vanity. + +She would have liked to sample the box of candy--a parting tribute from +a family friend who had a most discriminating taste in chocolates--but +she feared that it would place her hopelessly in the class of +school-girls, from which she had just emerged, as world-wise, as +sophisticated, as completely finished a young person as ever a convent +turned loose upon the unsuspecting world. "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" +was her favorite novel; she had smoked her maiden cigarette--in fact, +two of them; and she no longer subscribed to the stork-and-baby myth, +which seemed to her puerile. + +She was still able, however, to savor keenly in advance the moment when +the Pullman would empty itself into the dining-car and she would be free +to approach her chocolates in the manner favored by true _bon vivants_: +i.e., by nibbling off one end, extracting the contents bit by creamy bit +with the head of a pin (preferably a large white-topped pin), and +finally crushing the emptied shell deliciously upon the tongue. +Conserved in this manner, one chocolate might be made to do the duty of +many chocolates, an advantage not to be despised where pocket-money is +limited to twenty-five cents a week. + +The moment was not yet, and reflecting sedately that self-control is +good exercise for the character, she gave herself over to the pleasures +of recollection. + +What a beautiful parting it had been! What floods of tears and kisses +and promises! Seven--no, eight--girls weeping around her while they +exchanged dramatic farewells; firm Sister Mary Joseph, the out-sister +who conveyed pupils to shops and trains and so forth, leading her aside +at the last moment to press upon her, heretic though she was, a tiny +medal of St. Joseph, known to bring good husbands to his adherents; two +youths from the near-by college (mere brothers of friends, but still +masculine); and, for _pièce de résistance_, Stefan Nikolai, famous +though elderly, who had run over from China or Egypt or somewhere to see +her graduate. This was an attention Joan took quite for granted--he had +been a friend of her mother's, and distance seemed nothing to his habit +of life. But its effect upon her schoolmates, and even upon Sister Mary +Joseph, was gratifying in the extreme. With his dark, fine features, and +his foreign-cut clothes, he had not looked particularly elderly that +day. His eyes, Joan recalled, had always been peculiarly expressive, +like the eyes of a setter dog, which probably has nothing to express at +all; and she chuckled to recall how the out-sister's gaze had wandered +inadvertently toward the unconscious gentleman as she tendered her medal +of St. Joseph. + +Joan was fond of Mr. Nikolai, and grateful to him. She even read his +books, though she preferred his letters, which had a good deal in them +about herself. His presence at her graduation, his chocolates, the +little sea of papers with which he sought to beguile the tedium of her +journey, had all helped to comfort her for the absence of her father. He +was, she thought warmly, almost as good as a father anyway; and far more +generous! Everything nice she had was a gift from Stefan Nikolai. Her +lovely Chinese shawl, her carved jade ring (Joan wished secretly that +there had been a diamond in it somewhere), the odd piece of clear blue +aquamarine he had brought her for a graduation present, that just +matched her eyes; books too, in beautiful covers, and some old prints +that were anything but beautiful, and a white bear-skin for her room. +She would have liked to suggest to him that, in place of such costly +trifles, occasional dresses might be acceptable, of the sort that come +from Paris; also frilly things, hand-embroidered, which he would not +have to choose himself, of course--there being women clerks for the +purpose. She was a little surprised that he had not thought of it +himself, aware as he must be of the scarcity of such desirables in the +Darcy family. + +Still, one must not look a gift-horse in the mouth; and had he not been +such a lifelong friend as to be almost a relation, Joan would have +chafed a little, as it was, under her sense of obligation to Mr. +Nikolai. Her mother's daughter did not take kindly to a sense of +obligation. + +It was not he, however (ah, by no means he!) who had provided the +flowers which drooped at her belt. For one moment the absence of the +donor of these flowers had threatened to spoil the pleasure of her +parting; and then had arrived, breathless, a messenger and a note. Joan +was able philosophically to reflect that if the gentleman had come in +person she would never have had the note. And there is something +delightfully tangible and lasting about a love-letter--if, indeed, it +was a love-letter? + +That was one of Eduard Desmond's great gifts: elusiveness. + +She put her hand to her blouse and felt the responsive crackle therein; +and the words of the note danced before her eyes in the form of little +cupids, bearing garlands: + + My flowers must tell you what I dare not, dearest little girl + of my heart. You will understand why I cannot say good-by. + Truly, "To part is to die a little." Forgive me! EDUARD. + +Joan had done her thrilled best to understand, since it was expected of +her, but she felt rather puzzled. Was it that he feared his emotions at +parting might get beyond his control? Joan sighed. She could have borne +that. Or was it--here she frowned importantly--that his habits were +already resuming control of him, now that her hand was, so to speak, off +the rudder? + +Eduard Desmond, as all the Convent knew, was a man of the world, with a +past. He was also in his lighter moments an artist. The Convent was +rather vague in its mind as to the form of art he pursued; but that it +included habits was unfortunately certain, and his young niece Betty had +vouched personally for the authenticity of his past. It had had to do +with a married woman. The Convent frequently prayed for him; though +unknown to the nuns. + +Occasionally this distinguished-looking, fascinating, rather melancholy +young man came to take Betty and a few chosen friends to a matinée, out +of the kindness of his heart. Perhaps it was not pure kindness of heart +that had called to his special attention young Joan Darcy, with her +square chin, and straight black brows beneath which the eyes looked out +at you with an odd intensity; unless she smiled, when they danced like +blue water in the sun. She was not pretty, Joan, and boys rarely noticed +her, somewhat to her chagrin; but Eduard Desmond was no boy, and his +past perhaps had made him perceptive. The acquaintance between them +ripened to a degree unsuspected by the good sisters at the Convent, if +not by his family, who aided and abetted it, feeling that a young girl +might be rather good for Eduard. Doubtless she was. She entered into the +duty of "reforming" him with a conscientious thoroughness that might +have been trying to an artistic temperament, had he not got a good deal +of genuine interest out of the process himself; interest, and even more. +She had soft little confiding ways, like a friendly child's, combined +with the queerest flashes of cool understanding, anything but childlike, +which kept him rather in awe of her innocent vision. Indeed, that the +affair went no further than it did was due perhaps to Joan's perfectly +unconscious habit of withdrawing herself to see what was going on, of +being "not there when wanted," as Eduard put it to himself, annoyed. He +thought it deliberate, the reserve of the prude, or of the embryo +coquette; whereas it was really one of the crosses of Joan's life, +dreaded by her as the self-conscious dread attacks of shyness. + +So far she had come out of what might have been an illuminating +experience bearing only two small trophies of the sort girls love to +whisper about together in bed after dances when the lights are out; one +rather lingering kiss upon her slim, brown paw (which did not startle +her at all, but made her want to giggle); and now this love-letter--if +it was a love-letter. + +Again Joan sighed. She regretted with all her heart that queer aloofness +which came upon her in critical moments, making her notice that a man's +ears were put on wrong, or that her own finger-nails needed shining, +when she should have been surrendering her whole soul to emotion. Was it +always going to keep her from plumbing the depths of life? + +"Oh, but it shan't!" she insisted to herself. "I _will not_ be an +innocent bystander! Things must happen to me; they must. All kinds of +things!" + +It was the sort of challenge to which Fate is apt to give attentive ear. + +Presently, out of facts and recollections she slipped, as was her wont, +into a game of Pretend, which had been a sort of accompaniment to Joan +from her cradle; growing as she grew, changing as life changed its +aspect to her eyes. She was no longer plain little Joan Darcy, returning +from school in a shabby suit which she had outgrown, to a shabby home +which she had also somewhat outgrown. She was a glorified young person +of the singer or actress variety, returning from a career of conquest in +foreign parts, with her maid Fifine traveling second class in the coach +behind, as they do in all the better novels. Her father, not much +altered from real life except that there were no spots on his clothes +(the Major's manner being grand enough for any circumstances), would be +at the station with the victoria and pair--or perhaps the limousine--and +would murmur to the second footman, "Home, James"; and at the door of +the family mansion, a pillared, fan-lighted door (Joan's mind lingered +lovingly over architectural details even in her haste to reach the +people in the doorway) would be Ellen Neal first, dropping respectful +curtsies--quite a stretch, this, even for Joan's imagination!--and +beyond her, in a lovely tea-gown, all silk and lace and newness, would +stand her mother with outstretched arms, waiting.... + +Here Joan became suddenly aware that she was dropping large, hot tears +upon her precious chocolates--she who had sworn never, never to cry any +more in all her life, because tears are only useless things that make +the nose red! + +"But _why_ am I crying?" she demanded of herself, puzzled, still mazed +with her game of Pretend. + +It was because her mother would not be in that doorway, waiting; nor +anywhere ever again--unless there really is a Heaven. + +Joan sat there, too proud to bury her face in her hands or to search for +a handkerchief, intensely conscious that people were glancing her way, +praying wildly to all her gods to keep her from blubbering aloud; and +she looked so like a haughty infant in distress that the young man +opposite, he whom she had characterized as a necktie drummer, could not +long restrain active sympathy. + +"Pardon _me_," he said awkwardly, leaning toward her. "Are you in some +sort of trouble? Anything I can do?" + +Joan summoned all her scattered forces to meet this emergency in a +manner that would do credit to the precepts of Sister Mary Joseph. She +elevated her small red nose, and lifting her eyes to about the level of +his scarf-pin (a rather cheap scarf-pin) remarked: "You can go away. I +am telling myself sad stories of the death of kings." + +The necktie drummer retired, permanently, to the smoking-car. + +This victory cheered Joan into momentarily forgetting her mother. +Already an adventure to write to the girls! She wished that she had +looked a little farther up than the scarf-pin. + +Shortly the old lady whose daughter might have been Joan's age if she +had lived, invited Joan to be her guest in the dining-car, and was +repulsed, coldly and firmly. One hears such tales of wicked old harpies +on trains leading trustful girls into the most frightful predicaments! + +"No, thank you," said our heroine. "I never have much appetite on +trains." + +Soon the car was quite empty, and Joan, mopping the last of the tears +from her eyes, selected the largest of the chocolates and drew from some +recess of her person a white-headed pin. There was also, to be discussed +later, a packet of sandwiches, typical Convent affairs--large slabs of +bread embracing pale and clammy ham. Joan thought of these with +resignation. The odor of broiling beefsteak came back from the car ahead +rather poignantly. Joan had lied to the old lady. At eighteen, with +every nerve and organ in healthy coöperation, appetite is not likely to +fail, on trains or elsewhere. Nor was it as if she did not have the +necessary dollar in her pocket. Major Darcy always managed to rise to +the occasion somehow when the ladies of his family went traveling. He +had a horror of gentlewomen finding themselves among strangers +temporarily embarrassed for funds--quite a different affair from a +permanent condition of the sort when in the home circle. + +She knew that it was expected of her to spend her dollar in riotous +living; but she could not forget (the Joans of the world never can +forget) that a dollar is the price of a pair of white gloves or a pair +of silk stockings. And so she munched her sacrificial sandwiches with a +considering eye on the future. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Later, as she lay propped up in her snug little berth (far the +pleasantest part of the journey to Joan), with her shade up for fear of +missing anything of the mysterious night that passed outside--strange, +silent cities, isolated farms asleep in the starlight, the glow of +smelting fires as they flashed by, like a startling glimpse into the +infernal regions--it suddenly occurred to Joan that her father had been +unprecedentedly lavish in his provision for her journey home. + +"Money for good-by presents to all the girls; money for ticket, and +sleeper, and tips, and ten dollars besides--goodness! Dad must have +struck something!" she mused, deciding that it was really business that +kept him from coming to see her graduate, and not, to put it delicately, +the lack of business. + +In the Darcy family things were always put delicately. The mention of +cost was deprecated. One never said crudely that a thing could not be +afforded. One "preferred not to bother about it just then," or one +"liked last year's hat so much better than any in the shops," or one +"enjoyed the freedom of being without servants for a while--it was a +relief." + +Occasionally Joan's mother, before she overcame the blunter speech of +the North, had offended the family taste with plain statements about +prices and possibilities. Joan, observant from her cradle, drew her own +conclusions from the expression of wincing deprecation these faux pas +produced upon her father's face, or upon that of the cousin or aunt or +what-not in the way of Darcy relation that was usually visiting them. + +"Mamma," she had asked once in the murmured intimacy that preceded +sleepy time, "isn't money a very nice fing?" + +"A very nice thing indeed, babykins," answered the lady with a faint +sigh. + +"Then why mustn't us never speak about it?" + +It was not the only one of her daughter's questions that the harassed +woman had been obliged to parry with what skill lay at her command. +Honesty always came more easily to Mary Darcy than subterfuge. + +Joan grew up into the family habit of euphonious speech; but, thanks to +a certain inheritance from her mother, facts had a way of presenting +themselves to her inner vision with a clarity, a brutal frankness of +outline, quite unprecedented in the mind of a Darcy. + +Her facility in the valuable game of Pretend came from the paternal +strain. Richard Darcy was one of those fortunate spirits who move +through life to the sound of an invisible drum corps--a procession of +one, affably ready for whatever honors Fate chose to thrust upon him. +Joan, too, was quite prepared for the best the world had to offer. +Nevertheless, unlike her father, she was never unaware of the difference +between pretense and reality, nor of the fixed line dividing them. When +she lied, it was deliberately, with her eyes wide open. + +Just now she chose to step over the dividing line firmly into reality. +Perhaps her dinner may have had something to do with it; a diet of +chocolates and ham sandwiches not being conducive to glamour of thought, +even at eighteen. + +Joan wished, soberly, that she were happier at the idea of going home. +She wished that she were not haunted by a vague dread of it.... + +The Convent--with its daily round of prescribed duties and pleasures, +its fixed intimates and enemies, its atmosphere of simple piety, its +guardian nuns, striving conscientiously for that "detachment from place" +which is enjoined upon them, but lavishing all the pent-up +mother-passion of their hearts upon the young creatures in their +care--Joan, young as she was, visualized the place she had left as a +sunny haven, a little quiet eddy in the whirlpool; sheltered, secluded, +safe. + +She frowned at the adjective. Surely her own home was "safe," too! +Surely the vague dread she felt had nothing to do with her father, for +instance--her own dear, splendid Dad, so handsome despite his frayed and +spotted clothes, with the courtly manner that had won both nuns and +girls to awestruck admiration, and that gave him far more distinction +than the fathers of other girls who did not wear frayed and spotted +clothes. No, it could not be her father she dreaded! + +And it was certainly not Ellen Neal, the elderly woman who had followed +the Darcy fortunes in their waxing and waning for many a year--part +servant, part mentor, always friend; declining to be shaken off even in +those crises when Mrs. Darcy "enjoyed doing without servants"; +supporting herself during such financial depressions by means of a +skilful needle--supporting, Joan sometimes suspected, others than +herself. The girl recalled one significant incident of her early +childhood; her mother, pale and anxious, arguing at the door with a rude +man who declined to leave without something she seemed unable to give +him, until Ellen appeared, half running up the street, opening her +shopping-bag as she came. And when she had thrust something into the +rude man's hands and slammed the door in his face, Mrs. Darcy had turned +silently to the servant and kissed her. + +Joan's feeling for Ellen was one of the few she had never tried to +analyze. It was simply there, like her breath, her eyesight. She could +not be said to love her--there was nothing attractive about Ellen Neal; +yet her only quarrel with her father (if anything so one-sided could be +called a quarrel) was on the subject of Ellen. Once during Joan's +previous summer vacation, the Major, who disliked familiarity in +servants, had taken occasion to remind Ellen most kindly that his +daughter was almost a young lady now and should be spoken to as Miss +Joan, no longer as "Joie" or as "Baby." Joan had thoroughly concurred in +this opinion; until, happening to glance at Ellen as she left the room, +she saw that the servant's compressed lips were trembling. She had cried +out unaccountably: "No such thing, Nellen! You're to call me anything +you like, always!"--and then she had turned upon her father, scolding, +stammering out astonishing reminders, raising her voice, altogether +behaving in a manner most unbecoming a gentlewoman and a Darcy--as her +father quite obviously forebore to suggest to her. The quarrel had been +altogether a most unsatisfactory one. During her tirade the Major had +sat with poised carving-knife, regarding his daughter under mildly +raised eyebrows. When she had stormed herself out, he remarked quietly, +in quotation marks: + + "Her voice was ever soft and low, + An excellent thing in woman." + +But the matter of "Miss Joan" was, by tacit consent, never resumed +between them. + +No, it was decidedly not Ellen Neal who was responsible for her vague +dread of home-coming. The girl, who had an odd dislike of anything vague +in her mental processes, pursued the fugitive sensation to its lair with +relentless precision. + +Was it the poverty of home she feared, then? Surely not, for poverty was +a condition quite as much with her elsewhere--rather more with her +elsewhere, for among strangers it was impossible to practice those +useful little economies of ragged underwear and worn-out shoes which in +the privacy of home-life made an occasional extravagance possible. Joan +rather looked forward to the time when she no longer need be on +dress-parade, so to speak, at every hour of the day. + +"If I wear cheap nightgowns, I can buy myself a good hat," was her +thought--a thought which may be said to sum up the philosophy of the +Darcy family. + +And although it seems customary among novelists to gage the refinement +of their heroines by the daintiness of their taste in underlinen--no +matter if her outer wear be sackcloth and ashes, the lingerie of a true +fiction lady is invariably above reproach--one would like to submit that +an almost equal refinement may be indicated by the present heroine's +determination to make as brave a showing as possible before her world +with as little strain as possible upon her father's income.... + +Was it her mother's absence she feared then--still? Forewarned, Joan +resolutely kept back the nervous tears that threatened to rise again at +the thought of her mother; and she faced the possibility calmly. + +During the summer before, alone with her father and Ellen, Joan had been +given plenty of time to get used to her mother's absence. Indeed, it +seemed to her suddenly that during the several years previous she had +been given time to get used to her mother's absence. It was as if Mary +Darcy, knowing that the hand of death was upon her, had deliberately, +gradually, withdrawn herself from the child she loved, in order to make +the final separation easier. + +"That would have been like Mother," said Joan, nodding. + +She understood, in that moment of clear vision, why she had been sent +away to boarding-school, despite her father's amazed protests--it was +unprecedented that Mrs. Darcy should remain so firm in the matter of +incurring unnecessary expense. She understood, too, why the narrow, +bleak house in Louisville, which was the latest of their many homes, had +taken on none of the look of her mother--that intimate, friendly, +stay-awhile air which Mary Darcy, with the aid of long practice, managed +to produce among the most unlikely surroundings within a few hours of +occupancy. True, the old furniture made its faithful reappearance there, +part of Joan's earliest recollections--the parlor suite of rosewood with +blue velour, the little cottage piano, the great bed in which she, and +her mother, and her mother's mother had been born, shorn long ago of its +tester to accommodate altered circumstances--all looking a trifle +shabbier, a trifle more battered after each adventure with fortune, but +still dignified and "good," with the unmistakable mien of gentlefolk in +reduced circumstances. For once, however, Mary Darcy had not been able +to accomplish her usual miracle with this furniture. Chairs, sofa, +tables, stood stiffly wherever the moving-men had chosen to place them, +making no attempts to hide the spots on the wall-paper; the thread-bare +velvet portières which had separated parlor from hall in every home that +Joan remembered had never been altered to fit this one; stranger still, +there were no green growing things in the window-sills, nor even in the +can-strewn, sooty backyard. Joan could not recall any other home she had +lived in without some attempt at a garden, were it only a few geraniums +in the window-box. + +"Mamma must have been very tired," she thought, soberly; and realized +that, far from dreading her mother's absence in that dingy, dreary +house, she was almost glad of it. When one is as tired as Mrs. Darcy, +rest is the great boon--rest from hopeless hoping, rest from making +homes out of patience and courage and a few old sticks of furniture, +rest from the anxious sorrow of loving. + +Joan was young to understand such things; but at her birth the fairies +had given her the cruel gift of seeing out of the eyes of others.... + +She came to the conclusion at last the thing she had been dreading was +simply responsibility. Her play-time was over. No stretch of imagination +could make her a little girl again--not with her hair well up on her +head and a love-letter crackling deliciously under her pillow! Hereafter +it was hers to create the home her mother had relinquished; hers to make +ends meet somehow, if only in the accepted Irish way of "cutting a piece +off one end and tying it onto the other"; hers to keep out of her +father's eyes a certain baffled, hunted look which Joan associated with +men who came to collect bills, referred to grimly by Ellen as "the +Indians." No family of pioneers on the long-ago western frontier ever +lived in greater fear of Indians than did Richard and Mary Darcy and +their child Joan. + +The girl sighed, bracing her slight shoulders. But still thinking of her +mother, she rehearsed sleepily one tenet of the little creed she had +made long since to fit her necessities: + + "It does not pay to be too unselfish." + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Friends of Mary Darcy, in the distant days before they forgot to discuss +her surprising marriage with a promoter from who knows where, were wont +to say, "At least he makes a devoted husband and father!" + +Which was perfectly true. His little family had always been, as he often +said, a passion with Richard Darcy. Perhaps his facility in saying +things of the sort was what had appealed in the first place to the shy, +undemonstrative Northernness of Mary. Though he was one of several who +had professed their willingness to live for her, he was the only suitor +who had offered to die for her--an attention she could not but +appreciate. + +It was entirely for his child's sake (and, indeed, at some personal risk +to himself, had Mary but suspected it) that two years before Major Darcy +had so arranged the mysterious affairs he called Business as to be able +to return to the State and city of his illustrious birth; "where," he +explained with proud humility, "we are not quite nobodies, my darling!" + +(The "who knows where" on the part of Mary's friends had been sheer +arrogant affectation; for nobody could have talked with Richard Darcy +for five minutes without learning that he had been born and raised and +hoped to die in the great Commonwealth of Kentucky.) + +Joan had been quite as eager about the prospective move as her father, +marveling at the apathy of her mother, who said, "I never mind being +'nobodies,' Richard, so long as we have each other." + +Romantic visions danced through the girl's head of stately pillared +mansions, of faithful negro servitors, of fascinating belles and +gallants on horseback (her mental language became quite stilted and ante +bellum to suit the picture), riding to hounds through meadows as blue as +the skies above. + +"Though I don't suppose there's much bluegrass right around Louisville, +is there, Daddy?" she demanded, with the passion for truth that was in +her. + +"Plenty of it, Dollykins, plenty of it--though of course Louisville is +not really in the bluegrass region, you remember. It belongs to the +beargrass district." (Joan nodded. Thanks to her father's powers of +reminiscence, she was well up on her Kentucky.) "Still, it isn't like +one of these soulless Northern cities, which regard land as so much +waste space on which to build monstrosities!" He glanced out truculently +upon the streets of Chicago, which had managed in some way to incur the +Major's displeasure. "No, no, there's plenty of bluegrass about the old +town still, plenty of space, plenty of room to breathe. And how my old +friends will take you to their hearts and love you! None of this +blighting Northern indifference to everything except the chink of money. +Money--_bah!_--It is God's country down there, my child--gentleman's +country." + +This was not anti-climax on the Major's part. He visualized God at His +best as a superior sort of Christian gentleman, who, had America been +discovered at the time, would doubtless have chosen the Southern portion +of it for the scene of His nativity. + +Of course the girl's anticipations of "God's country" were too glowing +not to foredoom her to disappointment. The bluegrass itself was a flat +failure; mere meadows of ordinary green, above which hung in seedtime a +purplish tinge, like smoke from burning leaves. Louisville, too, did not +quite meet the rosy expectations of a young person rather experienced in +cities. + +They were received at the station, not by a deputation of the old +friends who were to take them to their hearts and love them, but merely +by a cousin, one of three Misses Darcy who had paid lengthy southern +visits to the various places Joan had hitherto called home. By this lady +they were conducted volubly in street-cars (Joan had hoped for a +long-tailed carriage-pair) to an ancestral mansion which had loomed +large in the Major's reminiscences, but which, as he himself admitted, +appeared to have shrunk strangely, after the way of houses one has known +in early youth. It was one of a row of duplicate tall marble fronts, +stained and yellowed, unpleasantly suggestive to Joan's too-vivid +imagination of neglected front teeth. + +From this shelter the Darcys soon departed. The cousins, while most +cordial, were under the necessity of letting their spare chambers to +paying guests, under which category their Cousin Richard could not with +any certainty be classed. + +Joan recalled vividly the family search for a house that suited both her +father's taste and her mother's pocket-book. The streets had seemed to +her gray, endless cañons, from whose pavements the heat arose and eddied +in dizzying waves. From within dark doorways women in dressing-sacks, +waving palm-leaf fans, gazed out at them languidly. Block after block +they traversed of houses that seemed as afraid of differing from each +other as men in evening dress; again they came to neighborhoods where +each dwelling stood at a bias angle from the street, as if hoping to +achieve an impossible privacy by turning a cold shoulder upon its +neighbor. And everywhere they huddled together as close as possible, +presenting a solid front of masonry to repel invasion. Where was the +space her father had boasted, the room to breathe? + +Joan had gazed longingly down certain vistas of tree-lined avenues, +lined with pleasant mansions; or into compact green courts where there +were smaller homes, with gardens. But these the elders passed without +inquiry. They were as quick as house-agents at guessing rents. + +At last an abode was found that seemed to the Major suitable upon all +counts. Mrs. Darcy, gazing up at its tall, narrow brick front, said with +a slight sigh, "Isn't there a good deal of it to keep clean, dear?" + +It was the first time Joan had noticed her mother's new little air of +weary indifference. + +"Ah, but in the South one cannot be cramped for room," replied the Major +largely. "There is hospitality to be considered! You must remember that +our daughter's début into society will take place from this house, my +love. Who knows?--perhaps her wedding!" He pinched Joan's cheek +playfully. "How do you like it, Dollykins?" + +"Not at all," she replied, too discouraged to be euphonious just then. +"It's hideous, and there's a grocer-shop opposite, and Mother'll never +sleep with these horrid cars jangling by. Why can't we have a house in +one of those pretty green courts, Daddy?" + +The Major looked pained. Mary came to the rescue. A few years ago she +would have explained bluntly that they could not afford one of the +pretty green courts. Now she said with a rallying smile, "What! Not a +banal, stupid, uninteresting new bungalow such as one might have in +Pittsburgh, or Oshkosh, or Kalamazoo, Michigan! Where's your sense of +local color, child? The atmosphere wouldn't be right at all!" + +Joan thought that the atmosphere of this neighborhood seemed to be +largely compounded of soot and sewer-gas; but she did not say so. + +Richard Darcy, brightening, pointed out that while the house indeed +faced a grocery-shop (so convenient for Ellen!), its rear was separated +only by an alley from the rear of a house which faced upon a very fine +avenue indeed; a backyard in which at the moment lingerie of a faint +flesh-pink disported lacy ruffles and kicked airy silken limbs upon a +clothes line. (Of this lingerie more anon.) + +"Evidently," pronounced the Major with an unconscious eye upon it, "a +desirable neighborhood in every way." + +So the lease was signed, and Ellen Neal and the furniture sent for, and +the first month's rent paid in advance; and these feats having been +accomplished, Mary Darcy took to her familiar bed and died there, +promptly and unobtrusively as was her way, without leaving any +inconsiderate doctors' and nurses' bills behind her. + +That first summer in Kentucky was a strange time to Joan. It was filled +with dim memories of the books she read aloud to her father day after +day, in the futile effort to be a companion to him; of long walks she +took with him in the cool of the evenings, through streets and parks and +suburbs that were as strange to the man who had come back to them, Joan +suspected, as to herself; and far more desolate. For the ghost of a boy +haunted them; a mischievous, headstrong, innocent lad who had meant no +harm to the world, nor to himself, in those days. + +Sometimes in the older streets he pointed out to her houses which came +near to fulfilling her best hopes of pillared Southern mansions. + +"Tim Throckmorton used to live there," he would say, forlornly; or +"Many's the time I've courted pretty Sally Field in that parlor!" + +Now there were "Furnished Room" signs in the windows, or shops in the +lower floors, or, worst degeneracy of all, signs of negro habitation. +For many a day the two hunted for a certain dearly remembered pond where +a boy named Dick and his friends had been wont to repair for fishing and +swimming and many a feat of derring-do. But they never found it; only +houses already old, and even office-buildings, in the place where it +might have been. + +And in those long and lonely walks they met no friends. It was as if for +Richard Darcy the streets of Louisville were peopled by the dead. + +Joan had suffered for her father even more than for herself. Somehow she +felt that she was better able to bear things than her father. And in her +inner consciousness, lonely as she was for her mother, and must always +be, she knew that the misery in her heart was a thing that would pass. +She was too young to be so sad for long. + +Old Ellen wisely kept her busy with her preparations for +boarding-school, her father having announced his intention of complying +scrupulously with his dead wife's wishes, no matter at what cost to +himself. Joan thought this very generous of him, although the cost was +figurative rather than literal, as Mrs. Darcy's little property was +willed to her child, with himself as guardian. Sometimes she had been a +little ashamed of herself for the willingness with which she prepared to +leave him, the eagerness with which she longed for the merry +companionships and irresponsibilities of school again. But perhaps it +was natural enough, considering that throughout that dreary summer her +sole companions had been her grief-stricken father, the servant Ellen, +and the sympathetic maiden cousins, who would have felt it indelicate to +so much as smile in the presence of such deep mourning. + +Toward the end of the summer she made one other acquaintance, thanks to +the above-mentioned lingerie. One of the sudden summer wind-storms which +occur sometimes in the Ohio Valley landed in their yard one Monday +morning a garment that had strayed unmistakably from the clothes line +across the alley; a trifle of palest silk and lace and blue ribbons +which Ellen Neal eyed with dark suspicion, but which Joan privately +determined to copy for herself so soon as finances permitted. + +Monday being the day when Ellen's temper was at its most difficult, Joan +decided to abate her dignity to the point of returning the article +herself; and so she made her way, looking very young and touching in her +homemade black frock, to the front entrance of the house across the +alley. And there by good luck she met, just alighting in her +porte-cochère from a most imposing limousine, a person who was +indubitably the owner of the strayed garment; a plump, blonde, dimpled +lady who suggested pink _crêpe de Chine_ and blue satin bows all over +her. She greeted Joan with an effulgence that seemed out of all +proportion to its cause, until in the course of conversation it +transpired that she, like the Darcys, was a newcomer in Louisville, and +rather lonely. Her name was Mrs. Calloway, and she came, as she vaguely +explained, from "across the river." + +"It isn't as easy to get acquainted here as I thought it would be," she +admitted naïvely, "Still," she added with her dimpling smile, "I expect +folks will be friendly enough, once they get to know me, don't you +think?" + +"Of course they will!" murmured Joan quite sincerely; for despite the +woman's patent vulgarity, there was something attractive about her. One +felt above all things that she was kind; and just then kindness meant a +good deal to the lonely girl. + +This kindness began at once to manifest itself. Elaborate desserts and +salads, in very ornate dishes, made their way across the alley to the +Darcy table; obligations scrupulously returned by Ellen with pickles and +preserves of her own making. There were other generosities, more +difficult to return in kind; candy, automobile drives, hothouse flowers, +the latter evidently meant for the grave where Mary Darcy lay among +strangers. + +Over these attentions Ellen Neal grumbled frequently. "Your pa certainly +ain't noticin' much these days, or he'd never let you get so thick with +a strange woman we don't know nothin' about, Joan." + +"A strange _lady_, Ellen," corrected Joan with dignity. + +"Humph! Lady is as lady does. Look at her face, all painted up like a +sign-board!" + +"Southern ladies quite frequently rouge," said Joan out of her recent +observations; but she did not pursue the subject, for she herself had +doubts as to her father's approval of this new acquaintance. Richard +Darcy was no democrat. He had been heard frequently to state, as one +rather proud of the confession, that he had no use whatever for the +_canaille_ (which he pronounced "_canile_.") + +Hence she was a little embarrassed and uneasy when, one Sunday morning +as she and her father were starting on their weekly visit to the one bit +of his native soil owned so far by Richard Darcy--his wife's grave--a +limousine drew up at their door, out of which beamed the face of Mrs. +Calloway, beneath a broad pink hat. + +"I suspected you'd be off to the cemetery this fine morning," she called +out cheerily, "and I thought I'd come and take you, you and your father. +Hop right in, both of you. No, it won't be a bit of trouble. I've +nothing else to do, and I always did love a cemetery anyway--it's the +first place I go to whenever I strike a new town." + +Joan glanced nervously at her father, wondering how he would take this +initial encounter with Mrs. Calloway. But after a moment's pause of +sheer astonishment, the Major's native gallantry came to the rescue, and +he advanced for the introduction with all the manner of one about to be +presented at court. + +They found themselves bowling along at a smart clip among the +churchgoers and the more lively joy-riders, out for a Sunday's pleasure, +which thronged the avenue that sultry August morning. + +"Now isn't this better than a poky old street-car?" demanded Mrs. +Calloway archly. + +The Major responded in kind. "Undoubtedly! Particularly in the matter of +company." + +Joan's liking for her kind-hearted neighbor had suffered a sudden +eclipse. Ellen was right about her--"Lady is as lady does." It was worse +than vulgar to force herself upon them at such a time--it was unfeeling, +indecent. She envied her father's poise. She had never seen him appear +to such advantage as upon this trying occasion, in his new, cheap black +suit which had not as yet had time to acquire spots and wrinkles, his +fine features showing the ravages of sorrow, his handsome gray head bent +courteously toward this voluble companion as though her every word were +priceless. Manners, she reflected, cannot be assumed on occasion like +garments, but are a part of the very texture of a personality. She could +not imagine her father anything but suavely courteous, even under the +most untoward circumstance. + +Nevertheless, beneath her pride in him lingered an odd fear lest, now +that he had an audience, he might be moved to oratory over her mother's +grave. With Richard Darcy emotion and the expression of it were usually +simultaneous. Joan's unresponsiveness (a trait which she hated in +herself, but could not help) had hitherto kept her father somewhat in +check; but in the presence of a kindly warmth of sympathy like Mrs. +Calloway's there was no telling what might happen. + +The Major, however, contented himself with murmuring, as he approached +the grave, "She was very, very dear to me!" in so touching a voice that +Mrs. Calloway openly wiped her eyes, exclaiming, "You poor man! Don't +you think I understand--I, who've laid away two of them?" + +Joan moved hastily out of earshot, leaving the pair to reminiscence. +Talk of things that hurt was to the girl like pouring acid upon an open +wound; but if it helped her poor father, by all means let it help him. +She had never made the mistake of thinking that because his grief was +facile it was any the less strong and real. His utter helplessness, his +stunned amaze that the wife he so sorely needed could have gone away and +left him to bear the vicissitudes of life without her, were as piteous +to his daughter as the wailing grief of a child. If she could have +comforted him in any way other than by speech she would have done so. In +the presence of great emotion she was dumb--though she sometimes thought +she might be able to write him what she felt. Often at night she lay +awake for hours, wondering how she could drive out of his eyes that +baffled, frightened look which always came when things went wrong with +him, and which only her mother had been able to banish.... + +It haunted her all through the months which followed, that look of her +father's; and sometimes in the midst of school-girl gaieties she would +fall suddenly silent, thinking that she had no right to enjoy herself +because he was there alone in the city of his childhood which seemed to +have forgotten him. Joan was not yet quite the hard young egotist she +intended to become. + +And so when toward the end of her journey the train slid into a pleasant +country, mellow with the evening sun, long reaches of rolling pasture +and hill and fertile bottom-land that meant Kentucky, something welled +up in the girl's heart deeper than glamour of place, stronger than +regret for her sheltered little past, than fear and hope for her +unguessed future; perhaps the deepest and strongest feeling life plants +in the human soul--the blood-tie. Weak or brave, fraud or fool or +honorable gentleman--perhaps a little of all these things--it was her +father who waited there for a woman to come and make him a home again; +and Joan was ready. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +The fellow-traveler who had incurred Miss Darcy's displeasure by a +too-active sympathy was much pleased, being of a sentimental turn of +mind, to witness a family reunion which presently took place in the +station at Louisville. A tall, slender gentleman of a youngish +Confederate colonel type--gray mustache and imperial, with a soft hat +set very slightly to one side of his handsome head--detached himself +from the crowd with a cry of, "Here I am, Dollykins!" + +Whereupon the girl dropped all her belongings, and cast herself upon him +speechless, to be lifted well off the ground and hugged and kissed very +thoroughly. + +"Fine! She's got a father, anyway, and a bully old bird at that," +thought the young man, who had never owned either father or mother or +much of anything else that he could remember. It was his further +privilege to hurry after the pair with a suit-case, some magazines, and +a box of candy which both had characteristically forgotten. + +He was thanked by Major Darcy with an affable smile, and by his daughter +with a curt, impersonal nod of dismissal after Sister Mary Joseph's best +manner; which also pleased him, for he was by no means a thin-skinned +young man, and preferred his gentlewomen haughty. He followed the pair +far enough to observe the vehicle to which the father was obviously +conducting her. + +"Humph!" he said to himself; "rich people!" and turned away, rather +disappointed. (Why this should be, the writer cannot say, being merely a +chronicler of facts.) + +Joan's flow of excited babble paused as she herself saw this vehicle. +"Goodness! Are we going home in a taxicab? What grandeur!" she murmured, +mentally figuring out the tariff. Then the monogram on the door +enlightened her. + +"Oh, it's Mrs. Calloway's," she said, relieved, a little ashamed to have +quite forgotten the existence of their well-meaning neighbor. "How good +of her to send it for me!" she added with a giggle, recalling her recent +game of Pretend. "All you need to do to complete the picture, Daddy, is +to say, 'Home, James!'" + +Major Darcy obligingly murmured, "Home, James!" The chauffeur touched +his cap, and enclosed them in the perfumed elegance of the limousine. + +Joan gave a crow of laughter, and rubbed her cheek affectionately +against her father's sleeve. This was like old times indeed, happy old +times, when in his lighter moments the Major had frequently entered into +the spirit of her play. The contact of his sleeve was unusually soft, +and she suddenly held him at arm's length to see him better. + +"Why, Major Darcy! If you haven't gone and bought yourself a new suit in +honor of the occasion. A beauty, too!" + +He surveyed what he could of himself complacently. "The fellow has given +me rather a good fit, I think." + +Joan gasped. "'The fellow!' Then it's not a ready-made--you've actually +been to a tailor for it? Oh, Daddy darling!" she cried excitedly, "have +you been making money?" + +The Major's eyebrows lifted. "I believe," he remarked, "that I have +usually made money, have I not? Sufficient, at least, to keep my family +comfortable." + +Joan was reminded with a jerk of Darcy traditions. "Of course!" She +flushed. "I didn't mean--" + +And suddenly she realized that the look she had been so long dreading to +see in his eyes, that expression of anxiety which was almost fear, had +quite disappeared. There was an air about him of security, of +nonchalance, as one who would say, "Bring on your Indians! Who's +afraid?" (Not that the Major would have condescended to know the meaning +of the family expression, "Indians.") + +Joan gave his hand a quick little squeeze that was oddly maternal. "I'm +so glad, Dad," she said quietly; and went on to speak of other things. + +They turned into the street where home was. Silence fell upon her. The +prospect of facing her mother's absence was more difficult than she had +thought it would be. At least there was Ellen to comfort her; gruff, +matter-of-fact old Ellen, always at her crossest when most deeply moved. +She pinned her thoughts to Ellen. + +The Major's recent prosperity seemed not to have affected his +dwelling-place as yet. As they drew near, Joan saw even in the dusk that +the little lawn in front needed attention; nor was there so much as a +light in the window to greet her--Ellen was always so careful about the +gasbill. Then, as the limousine did not stop, she realized the For Rent +sign on the door. + +"Why, Dad, we've moved!" she cried with an odd pang at her heart. "Oh, +but where?" + +"Wait and see. 'Lay-lows for meddlers,'" he smiled, pleased with his +little stage-effect. + +The limousine bowled smoothly around the corner into the fashionable +avenue beyond; and Joan thought, with a habit of anxiety beyond her +years, that the new money would not last long if they were to live in +such a neighborhood as this. But they stopped at a door she remembered, +an imposing door with a porte-cochère, where, still as in her game of +Pretend, a lady in a tea-gown stood waiting for them. Not, however, her +mother. + +"Here you are at last, girlie!" cried the cheery voice of Mrs. Calloway; +and she was received into a voluminous pink chiffon embrace, highly +scented with the latest thing in perfumes. + +Joan fought her way quite rudely out of this embrace, feeling +suffocated. Her knees had begun to tremble. + +"Are--are we visiting you!" she quavered, piteously putting off the +inevitable. + +The lady laughed, a laugh as plump and soft and cushiony as the rest of +her. "There, now, Dickie; I don't believe you've had the nerve to tell +her yet!" + +She rustled over and stood beside the Major, slightly in front of him, +so that she could lean back archly against his shoulder; a position +which seemed to bring an arm automatically into position about her +waist. + +"Dollykins," said Richard Darcy, clearing his throat and not quite +meeting the girl's wide gaze, "this is my--my graduation gift to you. +Your new mamma!" + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Joan was alone at last in such a bed as she had never occupied in her +life, even in her most luxurious games of Pretend. To her inexperience +the sheets felt as if made of softest silk--at its crest the Darcy +establishment had never run to fine linen--and they were edged with lace +which Joan longed frugally to transfer to a best petticoat; only that +there seemed no need for her to trouble further about best petticoats, +nor about anything else. Under the eager guidance of her "new mamma," +drawer after drawer in the room she occupied had been opened to disclose +piles of exquisite underthings, of the sort Joan had first encountered +upon the Calloway clothes lines, except that these were white instead of +pink. + +"Pink's _my_ color," explained the former Mrs. Calloway. "Besides, white +lawngerie seems sort of better for a girl that's never been married, +don't you think? Even if it isn't so becoming. 'Tain't as if there was +anybody to see her in it," she added, with a conscious blush. + +Joan found no suitable comment to make upon this treasure-trove. Her +lips would not utter anything beyond a perfunctory "Thank you," even +when further investigation discovered a closet hung with dresses of +every sort, with peignoirs, with motor-coats and dainty wraps, with +everything in the way of finery which every girl alive hopes at some +time to possess, but which the daughter of Richard Darcy had learned to +look upon from afar with an air of indifference. + +"Are these all for me?" she asked dully. + +"Of course they are! Just a few little models I had sent up on +approval." (The ex-Mrs. Calloway invariably referred to her costumes in +affectionate diminutives, as "little gowns," "little negligées," "little +hats," etc., though the adjective could rarely be said to fit them.) "If +these don't suit we'll get others--though anything ought to look good on +your form, dearie." She added, clasping her hands, "It certainly is fun +shoppin' for a daughter of your own!"--an outburst which might have +struck some responsive chord in a heart less young than Joan's, less +hard and tight and bitter with the tears that would not come. + +Major Darcy had observed her apathy under this rain of largesse with +some disapproval. It was not the first time he had secretly wished that +his daughter might have inherited a trifle more of the Darcy manner. At +length, as the girl stood looking about her new room silently, still +with the strange lack of comment that seemed like indifference, he +ventured a remonstrance. + +"I don't think you quite realize how much time and thought and trouble +your--er, your mother and I have expended on these little surprises for +your home-coming, Dollykins. Or you would be more appreciative." + +"_My mother!_" repeated Joan to herself with a sick gasp. + +It was the bride who came to her rescue. "She's tired out, Major, that's +all. And no wonder! She hardly ate a bite of dinner. You go right to bed +and sleep, girlie," she advised comfortably. "In the morning you'll be +better able to enjoy all your pretties." + +So Joan was at last alone, wondering whether she would ever be able to +enjoy anything again; alone in a strange room crowded with large blond +bird's-eye maple furniture which reminded her oddly of her step-mother; +with pale blue walls, a blue rug, blue silk covers on chairs and bed, +blue stationery spread out on the desk, all to match. There was nothing, +not a chair, nor book nor picture, to remind its forlorn inhabitant of +home; until suddenly, lost amid the glitter of the silver on the +dressing-table, she discovered a faded photograph of her mother which +her father had for many years carried in his pocket. This she jerked out +of the opulent silver frame that disguised it, and held hungrily to her +cheek, going to bed with it finally under her pillow. It did not occur +to her to wonder who had put it there. (But it was not Richard Darcy.) + +Yet still the tears would not come. She lay staring into the dark with +hot, dry, aching eyes, repeating agonizingly to herself the questions +she had not found courage to ask her father--foolish, trivial questions +that seemed almost irrelevant in the face of this overwhelming +calamity.... What had he done with the furniture, their furniture, the +dear, shabby tables and chairs and hangings which were part of the home +Mary Darcy had given her life in making?... And where was Ellen? What +had he done with Ellen? Was there to be nothing left? + +Once she whispered aloud, "How _could_ he?"--but resolutely turned her +mind away from that. It did not bear thinking of. The luxury of the room +seemed to crowd upon her, choking her.... The price of her father's +shame!... + +It seemed to her near morning when her door opened, softly. She began to +shiver, thinking it must be her father come for the intimate explanatory +talk which was inevitable between them. What could she say to him? How +could she ever find anything to say to her father again? + +But it was not Richard Darcy who tiptoed in. The lamp beside her bed +clicked on, revealing a good deal of the former Mrs. Calloway in a +marvellous nightgown, her golden head as carefully coiffed as for a +ball. + +"Major's off and going strong," she announced, "so I slipped away to see +how you were gettin' on, dearie. I Had a kind of feelin' you wouldn't be +asleep yet. I'm like that myself in a strange bed.... Look here," her +voice changed as she saw the white and miserable face among the +pillows--"you aren't holding it against your papa and me, girlie, +because we sprung this on you as a surprise? I _told_ Major we ought to +wait till you came home! But it was you who introduced us, you know; and +I knew it would be all right as soon as we got to know each other +better. And Major wouldn't hear to waiting, was bound and determined to +have me just as soon as he could get me. Men,"--she laughed her plump, +merry laugh--"are such babies when it comes to havin' what they want +right away, ain't they?" + +"Are they?" said Joan dully. + +"You take it from me they are! A man that doesn't want you quick don't +want you at all. And I must say your father needed marryin' more than +any one I _ever_ saw! Spots all over his clothes, and that shiny in the +back you could see your face in him. Your mother must have had a time +keepin' that man neat! Besides, if we'd waited till you came, what would +we have done with you on the honeymoon? Not," she added coyly, "that +it's over yet, by any means! When he was on his death-bed Calloway said +to me, says he, 'Effie May, our honeymoon never has been over, has it?' +Some women are that way, just naturally affectionate and fond of makin' +men feel at home. And both of us were real lonesome.... You don't blame +me for marrying Major, do you?" she finished rather wistfully. + +Joan said after a long pause, "No, I don't think I blame you, Mrs. +Calloway." + +The other gave an unexpected squeal of mirth. "Goodness' sakes, don't +call me _that_! If you don't feel like callin' me 'mamma' yet"--(there +was a hopeful pause, which Joan did not fill)--"then you might as well +call me Effie May. I'm not so awfully much older than you, I guess--I +was only sixteen when I eloped with my first. But there's one thing I +wanted to tell you"--(her voice lost its confident note and became +rather shy). "I married your father as much to get you as to get him, +dearie. A man's easy enough to pick up anywhere, goodness knows! if +you've got the looks. But a child--" she sighed. "That's something else +again. I used to think I'd like to adopt one, only Calloway didn't want +to be bothered--Say, it was more fun than anything I've ever done in my +life, shopping for lawngerie and little models and all, and telling the +girls in the stores they were for my little girl just coming home from +boarding-school!..." + +At this juncture, for some inexplicable reason--perhaps the warmth of a +kindly human presence, perhaps sheer rage with the vulgar, impossible +creature who, having purchased her father, expected also to purchase +her--whatever brought them, Joan's tears suddenly arrived--a torrent, a +deluge of them; in the midst of which her new mamma, with more tact than +might have been expected of her, disappeared. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +"Get up, Jo! Time you was gettin' up. Come, come--it's ten o'clock!" + +A familiar, relentless voice penetrated Joan's consciousness at last, +and she screwed her swollen eyelids down tighter and even managed a +reproving snore, wondering whether the halcyon days would ever come when +she might be allowed to sleep her sleep out in the morning. Probably +not, so long as Ellen Neal was within calling distance. The woman had a +horror of what she called shiftless ways. Once in a moment of special +exasperation she had been heard to mutter, "That's the chief thing +that's the matter with your pa--he's never ready to get up in the +morning!"--a remark which had remained in Joan's memory. + +Now the sheets were suddenly jerked off her, and the relentless voice +continued, "No use pretendin' you're asleep when you ain't. Here's your +breakfast they've sent up to you, child, just as if you was sick a-bed. +Humph!" + +Suddenly reality came back upon her with full force--horrible reality; +and she jumped up in bed and flung her arms around the old servant's +neck, clinging tight, as she had done many a time before when something +frightened her. + +"Oh, Nellen, Nellen!" she moaned. "It's you! I thought you had deserted +me, too!" + +The woman stood immobile in this embrace, making no effort to return it. +But her eyes blinked a little. + +"Sho! What would I want to do that for? Don't be silly--Look out! There +now, if you haven't gone and upset the coffee all over them fancy +sheets! Coffee's hard to get out, too. That's what comes of havin' your +vittles in bedrooms, where they don't belong." + +The tears, which had threatened to take possession of Joan again, turned +into a burst of wild laughter, "No matter! Plenty more where they come +from, Nellen. What is a lace-trimmed sheet to my new mamma? I expect the +very dishcloths are hand-embroidered. Behold the abode of cash, Ellen, +cash! Isn't it grand? Oh," she cried, her voice breaking, "_why_ didn't +you come to me last night! Didn't you know how I'd need you?" + +"I didn't know you was here, child, till I come this morning to see when +him and her was expectin' you." + +The girl's face fell. "Why, Ellen! Aren't you living here?" + +"Me? In this house? I wouldn't so demean myself," said the other primly. + +"Do you mean to say"--Joan's cheeks were hot--"that after all these +years, and everything you've done for us, my father has _let you go_?" + +Ellen tossed her head. "'Twan't none of his lettin', child. I told him +that all things considered I'd ruther sew for my livin'. And so I would. +Your time's your own that way, and you see more of folks. I like folks. +I must say," she added conscientiously, "that woman--your pa's wife--was +real kind about offerin' to get me work with a dressmaker. But Ellen +Neal don't have to be beholden to nobody, thank you!" + +"And where do you live?" + +A mysterious smile twinkled in the woman's eyes. "Some day when you're +good and sick of all this fancy flubdubbery" (she indicated with a +disparaging hand the elegancies of the blue chamber) "you come and see +where I live, Jo, and come often. I've got me two as nice rooms as ever +you seen. And--I got my own furniture for 'em, too, real grand furniture +I bought up cheap at an auction room. There's some carved chairs, and a +walnut desk with a bookcase on top, and some blue velvet porteers, and a +mahogany bed with the tester sawed off--" + +Comprehension dawned on Joan. "Ellen! _Our_ furniture!" she cried. + +Ellen nodded. "Some of it. As much as I could git. I'm keepin' it for +you till you git a home of your own to put it in, Joie. I sort of +thought your ma would want me to." + +Joan was weeping again, not the devastating flood of the past night, but +sweet and healing tears, as good for strained nerves as a summer rain is +good for flowers. + +"You old wretch!" she gulped. "Where did you get the money?" + +The other grinned. "Any time Ellen Neal gets caught without plenty in +her stockin'-fut, you may be sure the Scots blood is failin' her! I'm a +whole lot richer than I'm willin' to let some folks know. Why, I could +set idle, if I'd a mind to, the rest of my life--only I don't hold with +settin' idle just because you got a right." (Long afterwards it occurred +to Joan that Ellen, who was not given to discoursing on her own affairs, +must have had some reason for thus bragging of her unsuspected riches.) +"There's nothing," she added rather irrelevantly, "that makes a person +contented with the place she's in like knowin' she can go somewhere else +if she's a mind to." + +What barrier there had been between servant and mistress--a fluctuating +barrier at best, dependent upon Joan's varying conceptions of her own +dignity--had gone down forever under that rain of grateful tears, and +Joan felt free to ask some of the questions of which her heart was +full--how, for instance, the affair between her father and Mrs. Calloway +had begun. + +"How?" repeated Ellen grimly. "Well, when a lone female and a lone +he-male ain't got nothin' to keep 'em apart but an alley-fence, and her +with paint on her face till she looks like a fat sixteen, and food on +her table every day as good as a two-dollar table d'hôte, what can you +expect? I wa'n't surprised myself. Nor," she added quietly, "I don't +believe your ma would be, Joan." + +"Oh, but how it must have hurt her!" + +Both spoke in low tones, as if the spirit of Mary Darcy might be +lingering near enough to overhear. + +"I ain't so sure about that," mused Ellen. "I ain't so sure! Your ma +always set great store on havin' the Major comfortable--'Ellen,' she +said to me that last day, when we knew what was comin'--'Ellen, be sure +to keep him _comfortable_ here at home, so he won't be lookin' for it +somewheres else.' There's worse things can happen to a widow-man than +gettin' married again." + +"Oh, but if I'd been here to look after him myself!" wailed Joan. "If +you had only told me what was happening! I might have come back and +stopped it!" + +"About as much chance as stopping a fire-hydrant that's blown the top +off. You're a smart child, Joan, always was; but you don't stand a show +against that woman your pa's married--nor I wouldn't want you to," she +added cryptically. "You wasn't raised that way.--Anyhow it wasn't none +of my business. And just remember this, child, it's none of yours. It's +none of yours!" + +After she had gone, a sense of something heartening and bracing remained +with Joan; and as she brushed out her straight, heavy hair with new +silver-backed brushes which bore her own initials, a typical Ellenism +recurred to her: "There's nothing that makes a person contented with the +place she's in like knowing she can go somewheres else if she's a mind +to." + +"At least," she thought suddenly, "I'm independent of father. Mother +left her property to me--I can get it whenever I ask for it.... And now +I understand why!" + +Mary Darcy had been a very far-sighted woman. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +It was long before Joan recovered from the dazed sensation her father's +little surprise had produced in her mind. Perhaps she never did quite +recover from it. Something died within her; a naïf belief in the wisdom +of her elders, the ultimate rightness of existing things, which once +gone never returns again. If it is true that we live in experience +rather than in years, Joan came to her majority over night. + +It was her father's attitude which amazed her most. Had he seemed in the +least apologetic, in the least ashamed or embarrassed by the quality of +the woman he had put into her mother's place, she would have been ready +to pity and console and help him make the best of a grave mistake. But +the Major's attitude was that of the cat which has not only eaten the +canary, but digested it and found it extremely beneficial to the system. +Far from seeming apologetic, he appeared rather proud of his +performance. There was something almost pathetic in his content with his +new prosperity, with the ease and luxury of the establishment of which +he found himself head. + +Joan sometimes thought, with a scornful sort of pity, "How Dad must have +_hated_ to be poor!" + +Certainly he took to wealth, to which he had always professed himself +indifferent, with an alacrity which surprised his daughter. + +She had opportunity to notice, too, for the first time in action, +Richard Darcy's chief and perhaps sole equipment for the unequal battle +of life; his talent for making friends. Not for keeping them--that is a +separate art, calling for certain efforts, certain reticences, above all +certain abstentions of which Richard Darcy was temperamentally +incapable. But in the art of creating admiring and useful acquaintances +out of raw material he had few equals, even among his own profession. + +Mary Darcy had kept herself and her child for the most part aloof from +these easily acquired friends of her husband, though they were +invariably quite presentable--(as has been hinted, the Major had no use +whatever for what he called "the canile"). Possibly this was owing to +some odd Puritan scruples on Mary's part about combining business with +pleasure.... + +But now that business had no longer to be combined with pleasure, +Richard Darcy was free to exercise to the full his gift for being +agreeable, without afterthought. It was perhaps fortunate that his new +wife had made few friends of her own, a fact which left him unhampered +in the matter of what he called quite seriously "resuming his position." + +Joan found that he was no longer forgotten in the city of his youth. The +older residents had already been made aware by means of engraved and +crested announcements that Richard Throckmorton Darcy had returned to +their midst for the purpose of wedding one Effie May Smith Calloway, and +that the bridal pair would be at home after a certain date at a very +good address on Elmtree Street. Whither quite a respectable number of +them hastened, if only out of curiosity, to leave cards. + +What they found was an extremely affable, leisurely, and +prosperous-looking host, an establishment which appeared able and +willing to maintain those traditions of Southern hospitality which have +latterly fallen somewhat into disuse, and a rather silent young girl +whose manner atoned for the perhaps excessive cordiality of her +step-mother. Some of the callers did not come again, even under +pressure; but on the whole Joan realized that the old friends in whom +she had almost ceased to believe were about to take the Darcy family +belatedly to their bosoms, indifferent to the substitution of a Mrs. +Calloway for her mother. + +It was the girl's first experience of the omnipotence of money; an +experience which if it comes young enough will make a cynic out of a +congenital optimist, which Joan was not. + +To do the new Mrs. Darcy justice, she was an adaptable and, in her way, +a tactful creature who had already in her admiration of the Major and +his daughter, learned to modify her speech and behavior rather +touchingly. And her frank delight with what she called "breaking into +society," may have been rather disarming to society; or to such portion +of it as found its way to the imposing house on Elmtree Street. She was +extremely cordial to her guests, urging them to come often, to have more +iced tea and cake, to take candy home to the children, to try the +Major's cigars and whisky, for which he had an undoubted palate. If the +women looked at her a little askance, the men were loud in her praises, +and obeyed her urgings to come often. + +Effie May, encouraged, began shortly to seek new worlds to conquer. + +"Well, what next?" she demanded one night at dinner, after an afternoon +of callers, stifling a wide pink yawn with the palm of a much beringed +hand. "Your old families are all very well, Dickie boy, refined and +classy and all that--but, my God, they ain't exciting! Now are they? +Isn't there anybody in Louisville born since the Civil War?" + +"If there is, I'm afraid I don't know it," admitted the Major, smiling +indulgently. "You see the people who were young when I left are young no +longer." + +"So we've noticed," murmured his bride, making a companionable grimace +at Joan. "But we don't want to spend the rest of our lives in the +baldhead row, do we, girlie? You've got to find us something under sixty +to pal around with, Hubby mine, that's all there is to it. See?" + +One of her step-mother's most unbearable traits, to Joan, was her habit +of calling the Major absurd comic-supplement pet names. But his dignity +seemed not to suffer from it. In fact he expanded visibly under the +treatment, like a dog whose ears are being tickled. + +"Your commands are law, my angel," he said. "Just how would you suggest +that I go about it?" + +Effie May ruminated, while the two Darcys watched her--with, however, +somewhat varying expressions. The Major appeared to be admiring, indeed +gloating over, the appearance she made at the head of her bountifully +appointed table, in a dress not niggardly in its display of her +bountifully appointed charms. His eye followed appreciatively the curve +of her plump arm as it disappeared into enveloping laces. + +Joan, on the other hand, watched her step-mother warily. There was +something about the woman she could not fathom, for all her surface +simplicity. She felt, beneath the other's careless, easy good-nature, a +certain force, a driving power, in the grip of which she and her father +were mere helpless puppets. Effie May would use them always for her own +ends--whatever those ends might be. Why had she chosen to saddle +herself, free and rich and independent as she was, with an impoverished +gentleman and his grown-up daughter? Certainly at that age, thought Joan +(Effie May was in the neighborhood of forty), people could not possibly +fall in love! No, there was something mysterious about her +step-mother.... + +"I have it," said the lady suddenly. "The Country Club! I see in the +society column that everything nowadays is going on at the Country Club. +We'll have to join that." + +"I believe," interposed Joan, flushing, "that people have to be invited +to join a club, don't they, Father?" + +"All right--We'll _be_ invited. Won't we, Dickums?" said the bride, with +a ravishing smile in the Major's direction. + +He rose to the occasion. "Certainly, my love," he replied. + +And they were invited. At any rate, a week or two later found the Darcy +family dining alone at the Country Club, among various other little +table groups, all of whom seemed to know each other intimately. + +To be in and not of this friendly assemblage filled Joan with that most +miserable of all sensations, crowd-loneliness. Even the Major wore a +rather fixed and nervous smile, and mentioned to his wife and daughter +at intervals that Louisville society had changed very much since he used +to frequent it. Only Effie May seemed quite unperturbed, gazing about +her smilingly, and tapping her slippered foot, and nodding her head in +time to the music; meeting the curious glances which strayed in their +direction with a frank interest of her own which might have seemed bold +if it were not so like a pleased child's. + +Joan, intercepting one or two of these glances, looked her step-mother +over critically, and to her relief found her less flamboyant than usual. +She was dressed in white--"Handsome white, not girly-girly muslin like +yours. I'm too stout for that," she had said wisely to Joan--The girl +reflected that it is difficult to look vulgar in white. Mrs. Darcy was +not appreciably different in appearance from many another rather +overdressed matron there, even in the matter of rouge and touched-up +hair. + +As for her father--Richard Darcy would have been a distinguished figure +in any assemblage he chose to enter, with his six feet of gallantly +carried avoirdupois, his finely modeled head, his gray mustache and +imperial concealing a mouth that might otherwise have left something to +be desired. He wore that night--and wore well--clothes of the palest +gray flannel, with socks and buckskin shoes to match, and a gray stripe +in his white tie, and a gray monogram embroidered upon the exquisite +cambric of his handkerchief. This was the parent who a few weeks ago she +had associated irrevocably in her mind with spots and frayed collars! +She found herself wishing that her mother could see him now--she would +be so proud of him!... + +To her own appearance Joan gave little consideration. She had discovered +that the great advantage of good clothes is that you no longer have to +think about them. She was quite unaware of the value in contrasts she +afforded--her small, dark, smoothly combed head lifted proudly on its +long neck, the awkward grace of her thin young body, the pale oval of +her face lit by surprisingly vivid eyes, of the sort that are dreamy and +shadowed until excitement turns them into soft blue fire. She was +excited that night, a little frightened. She did not smile at all, but +there was that about her lips--sensitive, wistful, faintly +drooping--that made more than one person who glanced at the Darcy table +wonder what the smile would be like if it came. + +When the dancing began, Effie May's exuberance could no longer contain +itself. + +"This is something like!" she cried. "This is what I call life! Come on, +Dick--'Waltz me around again, Willie, around, around, around!'" + +"But," protested the Major, "it is some time since I have waltzed, my +love--" + +"Never mind, you'll waltz with me! Anybody can dance with me. The boys +used to call me Lightfoot Ef--Oh, but you'll have to get a partner for +Joan, first, of course; I forgot we had a family along." + +The girl flushed, aghast at the thought of her father whirling in the +midst of that whirling throng. "No, no, Effie May, please--!" she urged. +"Let's just sit here quietly and look on." + +The other laughed aloud. "Naturally! That's what we've come to a dance +for, to sit against the wall and look on--Nonsense! Go and find your +child a partner, Dick, and hurry back. My feet just won't keep still." +She was humming gaily in time with the orchestra. + +The Major, gazing a little blankly at the crowd of strangers before him, +obediently went forth to do her bidding, and Effie May seized the +occasion to give a little womanly advice. + +"Don't you fret, Joan--remember there's as many young fellows in the +world crazy to know girls as there are girls crazy to know them. And +dearie"--her voice sank to a friendly whisper--"warm up to 'em a +little, can't you? Jolly 'em along. Hot air, you know, talk! No +matter what you say, just keep talking. That don't-touch-me, +butter-wouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth air may be all right with the nuns and +the old families but it won't go down with the men. Believe me, dearie! +I know." + +It was a well-meant effort, which had the effect of congealing the +already subdued Joan into something resembling a marble effigy. + +The Major shortly returned, bearing urbanely in his wake a blond young +man who seemed not too unwilling. + +"I want you to meet my wife, sir," he was saying. "I want to have the +pleasure of presenting you to my daughter. Fancy the coincidence, my +dears--this gentleman turns out to be the son of an old schoolmate!" + +Effie May welcomed them with enthusiasm. "Good for you! I had my money +on you, Dickums! Five minutes, and the son of a schoolmate! It's a +record!--Ta-ta, young people! Enjoy yourselves," was her valedictory as +she whirled the Major away, waving her hand over his shoulder. + +Joan stared aghast at the blond young man, who said, "She is an awfully +jolly sort, your mother, isn't she?" + +"Very jolly," agreed Joan faintly. "But she's not my mother." + +"Oh!" + +A silence fell. He seemed to be waiting for her to break it. She gulped, +and said in a firm voice, "Did you come to ask me to dance?" + +The young man indicated politely that such was his intention. + +"You couldn't very well help yourself, could you?" she remarked, and +suddenly burst out laughing--rather hysterical laughter in which the +young man joined embarrassedly. + +"Of course if you'd rather talk--" he murmured. + +Joan jumped to her feet. "Oh, but I wouldn't! I'd rather do _anything_ +than talk--no matter what I say, just talk, warm up to 'em, hot air--I +mean," she explained desperately, "I'm much too shy to talk!" + +"You don't sound very shy." + +"I know--they're the worst sort, the ones who hide it." + +They commenced silently to dance. Presently he confessed, "I'm +rather--shy, myself." + +"Goody!" she exclaimed with relief. "Then we needn't bother to talk at +all." + +They parted quite reluctantly when a whistle blew for the "circle"--a +useful innovation for breaking up relations, by whose aid Joan found +herself exchanging partners at intervals throughout the evening without +finding herself too long on the hands of any. She blessed the inventor +of the circle. Youth and a pair of winged feet came to her rescue, and +she forgot her strangeness in sheer joy of motion. The people she danced +with that night were not men; they were as trees walking, for all the +personal memory she kept of them. + +But when the music finally thumped itself out, and Effie May, a trifle +blown and moist about the brow, again resumed charge of her scattered +family, saying, "Well, dearie, you've had a pretty good time, haven't +you?"--Joan was able to answer with some surprise that she had. + +"Dancing," commented the Major, puffing, "is a very healthful exercise; +indeed, an esthetic exercise. The Greeks practised it, as I recall, +extensively, even in their riper years. My love, with a little +experience I think I shall easily master that step you call the fox +trot." + +"Sure you will," encouraged she who had been called Lightfoot Ef, +patting his cheek maternally. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +The Darcys' social career appeared to be well launched. Each Saturday +night found them at the Country Club, and no longer dining in +loneliness. Effie May speedily collected about her a group of congenial +spirits, for the most part young people, among whom she was extremely +popular--far more so than was Joan, who sometimes felt as if she were +the only elder present. Theirs was usually the most hilarious table in +the room. Corks popped freely, and there was much horse-play, and +throwing about of bread, and at a certain stage of the evening rather +frank persiflage in which, to Joan's relief, her step-mother took no +part. She laughed her cheery, plump laugh, and made no comment; but more +than once with a glance at her step-daughter, she managed quite deftly +to steer the conversation into other channels. Joan came to the +gratifying conclusion that her father's wife was afraid of her. + +The Major at his end of the table devoted himself assiduously to his +duties as host, seeing that glasses were filled, distributing gallant +remarks among the ladies, constantly signing tickets. He was in his +element; expanding, positively glowing, with hospitality. + +"Another cigar, my boy? Try this brand! Take several! Fill your pockets +with them. I can recommend them personally!" + +There came to be several brands which he could recommend personally, +several vintages as well. The waiters hovered about him like cherubim +about the throne of grace, and he knew them all by name, and took an +interest in their families. + +This lavish generosity, Joan reflected, was the spirit which gave the +old South its glamour, its traditions--to say nothing of its consequent +poverty. There was something rather fine and large about the Major's +apparent obliviousness of the fact that the money he spent so royally +did not belong to him. + +"If Effie May does not worry, why should I?" argued his daughter with +herself. Her father's affairs were no longer her concern; if indeed they +had ever been. But she could not help taking a certain uneasy interest +in them. + +"How do you happen to know enough people to invite to all these parties +of yours?" she asked Effie May, aware that the Darcy family was doing +rather more than its share of entertaining. + +"Oh, you don't have to know people well to ask 'em to parties," +explained the other innocently. "And once they eat with you, they're +your friends." + +"That depends upon what you give them to eat!" interjected the Major, +chuckling. + +It seemed a primitive conception of social relationships, but not on the +whole a false one. Joan thought of the Arab and his salt.... + +"Food," she wrote to Stefan Nikolai, "appears to be the Tie that Binds." + +"What about drink?" he inquired on a post-card. (They did a good deal of +this staccato correspondence, Joan liking to exchange deep thoughts with +him, as she expressed it, "while they were hot.") + +"Drink," she replied on another, "is the Tie that Loosens!..." + +Stefan Nikolai was the only one of her friends with whom she had found +courage to discuss her father's marriage. Writing things out to him was +almost like writing them out to herself. It served somehow to clear her +mind. It is probable that Mr. Nikolai, a student of various phases of +the human problem, got a good deal of valuable vicarious experience out +of young Joan's letters. Certainly he encouraged them. + +It was to him that she confided her discovery that social life is far +more pleasing after dinner than before. She was learning to count, as +surely as does many an experienced hostess, upon the help of the Tie +that Loosens. While she herself had not as yet developed her father's +palate for cocktails and fine vintages she appreciated their effect upon +her partners--for to her men so far were merely partners. + +It was after dinner that Joan's part of the evening began. Then, thanks +to the Tie that Loosens, there was no longer need to make banal +conversation nor to listen to it, no need to pretend friendly interest +in young men to whom she was incurably a stranger, no need of anything +but to yield herself to the music and the first pair of arms that +offered, and float away into Dreamland. + +There was something curiously sensuous to Joan about dancing. It acted +like a drug upon her fancy, stimulating, soothing. She was hardly aware +of whom she danced with, if he could dance. If he could not, she +stopped. This odd impersonality of hers was rather piquant to her +partners. Many a youth who was afraid to talk to "that quiet Darcy +girl--you never know what she's thinking about!"--was not afraid to +dance with her, whenever he got the chance. + +At such times Joan had her rare moments of beauty. With flushed face, +loosened hair, and wide, dreaming eyes, she was as graceful as one of +the three circling maidens in the Primavera--the one who looks wistfully +over her shoulder at the oblivious youth. Unfortunately her lot was cast +among people who did not think in terms of Botticelli. Her step-mother +wondered sometimes whether curling-tongs and perhaps a little rouge +would make her look more like other girls.... + +Sometimes people came to the club who attracted Joan's +attention--quieter people than Effie May's friends, more simply dressed, +who never seemed to join in the accentuated hilarity after dinner. Once +in such a group she recognized the girl who had eyed her aloofly on the +train coming home from boarding school. Joan suddenly yearned to do some +aloof eyeing on her own account, now that she was no longer shabby but +wore a frock as smart as any in the room. + +She watched her opportunity, and followed the stranger into the +dressing-room with some such truculent idea in view; but was disarmed by +the courtesy with which the other made room for her at a mirror, where +they powdered their noses side by side in amity. As she was leaving the +room, however, she heard the aloof one murmur to a friend: "What a lot +of strange people one sees at this club nowadays! I wonder where they +all come from? It's getting very mixed." + +Joan went white with anger. She struggled with the temptation to explain +proudly that she was not a strange person, that her name entitled her to +any society she chose to enter, that it was her step-mother who was +"mixed," not she.... + +And then she remembered that it was only thanks to her step-mother that +she happened to be there at all. + +For the moment this encounter with the enemy took away Joan's heart for +dancing. Crowd-loneliness got her by the throat. Was there always to be +just one of her, and so many of everybody else? + +She slipped out on to a terrace that overlooked a valley with the great +river gleaming far off, still holding some faint glow of the sunset's +aftermath. There was a bench at the far end, lost in shadow, and she was +about to seat herself there when she saw that it was already occupied. + +"Oh," she said, drawing back. "I didn't notice you!" + +"Women rarely do," remarked a plaintive voice with a smile in it. "I'm +used to that. And yet I notice them, dreadfully!" + +Joan laughed a little, and retreated. "I won't disturb you," she +murmured; but the voice held her. + +"Oh, please! Please do. I want to be disturbed. I simply came here to +see my moonrise." A shadowy arm pointed out a dim glow over the trees to +eastward. + +"Why _your_ moonrise, especially?" + +"By right of discovery. I seem to be the only person aware of it.... May +I share it with you?" + +"You are sure you wouldn't rather see it alone?" + +"Goodness gracious!" cried the voice quite querulously, "what human +being ever wanted to watch a moonrise alone?" + +Joan chuckled, and sat down to the first conversation she had enjoyed +since her last one with Stefan Nikolai--one of the few real +conversations, she thought afterwards, in her life. + +Yet it was difficult to remember the many things they talked about. +Smoke, for one. He pointed out the dim loveliness of the city below, +towers and battlements and the airy span of a bridge against the +gray-gold sky. + +"'Many-storied Camelot town,'" he said, musing. "Without the shrouding +smoke, what would it be? Factory chimneys, iron smoke-stacks, a +filtration plant--Ugliness, ugliness! Yet there are people in that town +who want to rid themselves of those billowing mists of rose and violet +and silver." + +"I suppose," said Joan, "the beauty of smoke depends upon whether you're +down in it, getting smuts on your nose, or looking on from a hilltop." + +"A question of perspective, you think? Hmnn--yes. Well, then" he said +reasonably, "by all means _get_ your perspective. Stick to the +hilltop--especially at sunset." + +"We haven't all got wings to reach a hilltop with, you see. Nor yet +automobiles." + +"I haven't, myself," he said. "I use trolley-cars.... Did it ever occur +to you what a marvel the trolley-car is? For a nickel--or at most a +dime--all Nature is yours to command; beechwoods in their autumn field +of the cloth of gold; little whispering streams breaking their winter +silence, fireflies dancing--to the tune of the 'Merry Widow' waltz," (as +that melody of the moment made itself audible from the house beyond). +"What a twilight! Fireflies, an afterglow, and the moonrise set to +music, all at once," he said under his breath. "And some one to share +them with!" + +Joan was silent, flattered by the knowledge that this whimsical +gentleman was letting her into his thoughts. + +"The beauty of such a moment is that one never loses it," he mused. "One +puts it away as people press flowers in books, to be looked at +when--when pleasant things need remembering. I thank God for a mind well +stocked with beautiful occasions!" + +"Wild Evenings I Have Known," murmured Joan, frivolously, because for +some reason she was rather touched. + +He nodded, "With wild people in them. Like you." + +"Me! Wild?" + +"Oh, I know on the surface you're a demure, well-behaved young miss, but +underneath--good gracious! You'd shock these people to death!"--he +indicated certain hilarious couples who had waltzed onto the terrace +near them. "Yes, you're quite untamed, my dear. Wild as a--chipmunk." + +Joan leaned toward him, "How did you guess?" + +"I've watched you dance. And then--well, I've never quite got used to +the cage myself, perhaps." He began to hum under his breath a tuneless +little ditty: + + "It is a very dreadful thing + To be so fat a child, + To have to sit around all day + And yet to feel so wild." + +"At least," laughed Joan, "I'm not fat!" + +"No!" he said soberly, "never get fat. It is the beginning of the +end.... By fat I mean old. And cautious. Ugh!" + +How the conversation came about to apple-trees, Joan never was sure; but +he told her about one he had discovered somewhere in the deep woods, all +in bloom, a little old gnarled affair hidden among giant first growth +sycamores and elms and beeches. + +"An apple-tree lost in the woods! How do you suppose it got away from +civilization?" wondered the girl. + +"Some bird, perhaps; or Johnny Appleseed." + +"Who was he?" + +"Fancy living in Kentucky without knowing about the first and greatest +of our pioneers! He was a daft old creature--an innocent, as the kind +phrase goes--who used to wander away from the settlement where he lived +into the wilderness, scattering apple seeds. All over this Ohio Valley +he journeyed, sowing his orchards for the benefit of those who were to +follow. The Indians let him pass, the wild animals did not harm him; +only his friends locked him up whenever they could catch him, because it +seemed such a silly thing to do. Friends are that way ... Years later, +when the pioneers fought their way at last over the mountains to stay, +they found here and there apple-trees blossoming and fruiting in the +great, lonely wilderness; and wherever that happened their wives made +them build cabins and settle down, for of all things that grow an +apple-tree most suggests home. So mad old Johnny Appleseed was the +founder of many cities." + +"And yet there is no monument to him!" + +"Except the cities...." + +Here a young man appeared to claim Joan for the next dance--the blond +young man with whom she had commenced her dancing career, and who had +formed quite a habit of looking for her whenever the music played. + +She rose with reluctance. "I wish _you'd_ come in and dance with me," +she said to her new friend. "I'm sure you could!" + +"I'm sure I could, too," he replied, "if I hadn't my body with me. As it +is, I'll just sit out here and make believe I'm dancing with you--In a +starlit glade. With the other young nymphs and dryads..." the whimsical +voice followed her. + +The blond young man stared. "Of all the assorted nuts!" he remarked, +when they were out of earshot. + +"Yes--but who is he?" demanded Joan eagerly. + +"Something on the stock exchange. I see him there every day." + +"The stock exchange!" + +"Yes. Oh, he writes poems and things for the papers, too, I think. Quite +a literary guy." He mentioned the name. + +It is a name known and remembered wherever there are moonrises and +fireflies, smoke against the sunset, apple-trees in bloom--all the +everyday lovely things people forget to see unless there are poets to +remind them... + +It gave Joan quite a new zest in living to realize that at any moment, +even at Country Clubs, it is possible to run across a poet. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Richard Darcy was accepting the change that had come into his life much +as he had accepted others of a less fortunate trend. He had become at +last what Nature had always intended him to be, one of the world's +chosen, a rich man--or, what was even better because less troublesome, +the husband of a rich woman. He was also once more an honored citizen of +his native commonwealth--where he had not always been entirely an +honored citizen, owing to one of the unfortunate mistakes to which youth +is liable. There had been some disagreement with an early employer about +the right of employees to divert the firm's funds, temporarily of +course, to private uses. Only family influence had prevented this +misunderstanding from resulting in truly disastrous consequences, which +he shuddered to this day to contemplate. But it had prevented; and the +early employer was dead (as Richard Darcy had taken pains to ascertain +before returning to Louisville), and the few who knew of this painful +episode at the time appeared to have forgotten it. + +Very good! He was quite willing to forget it himself. It was Richard +Darcy's creed that a gentleman takes whatever comes in his stride, +without too many backward glances; and his stride was just now adapting +itself gracefully to the one-step. + +Joan, watching her father sometimes with a faint recrudescence of pride +in his sheer good looks, decided that he was the only stomached person +she had seen who could perform the one-step without loss of dignity. He +footed the measure indulgently, as a bishop or a cardinal might have +footed it, with an air of spiritual detachment, as it were, while yet +seeming to receive and to bestow a priceless privilege. Even lively +young girls liked to dance with the Major. It made them feel uplifted. +If he pressed the hand or the waist of his prettier partners more +closely than necessary, the pressure seemed almost impersonal, a mere +tribute to a sex which he could not but regard with tenderness, being +himself a husband and a father. + +In addition to this valuable social acquirement, the Major further +fortified his popularity by inventing and promoting (uncommercially, of +course) a beverage which shortly bade fair to make him famous, and which +was christened by grateful habitués of the Country Club the "Dick Fizz." +Its ingredients were--but that is a secret not at the author's disposal. +Suffice it to say that the "Dick Fizz" achieved results that were all +and more than could be expected of it. (Among others, the Major's +election to a certain gentlemen's club which had hitherto remained +annoyingly unaware of him. So much for the power of the Tie that +Loosens!) + +It was thanks to the "Dick Fizz," too, that there presently came about +between Richard Darcy and his daughter that heart-to-heart interview +which had been postponing itself from week to week, with the tacit +consent of both parties; an interview dreaded by Joan perhaps even less +than by her father. + +They were returning one night from one of their most successful +evenings; Joan as usual on the front seat beside the chauffeur, where +she might enjoy the rush of the cool night air upon her face, and hear +as little as possible of the billing and cooing of the honeymooners in +the tonneau behind. There seemed more of this than usual, little +giggling exclamations and audible embraces which made the girl wince and +the chauffeur grin surreptitiously. + +"Really, Father!" protested Joan over her shoulder. There was something +physically nauseating to her in those amorous echoes from the tonneau. +No wonder servants laughed! It made of love a travesty and a mocking. + +She was glad when they reached home. The Major stepped out gallantly to +assist the ladies, but miscalculated his impetus, and after a series of +complicated maneuvers brought up seated upon the curbstone. The +chauffeur burst into an uncontrollable guffaw, in which his mistress +heartily joined. + +"Oh, you Dick Fizz!" she laughed, wiping her eyes. "I knew it would get +you yet. _Look_ at your funny papa, dearie! Lit up like a +Christmas-tree!" + +The Major murmured something reprovingly about the duties of +hospitality, which he found some difficulty in pronouncing; but once +upon his feet, he gave an arm to each of them and managed the steps +without further mishap. + +In the hall Joan, who had not laughed, said to her step-mother in a low +voice, "Is he--drunk?" + +"Oh, not enough to hurt," replied the lady, still laughing. It occurred +to Joan that she herself was a little flushed and expansive. "I can +handle him, all right. Don't you worry! I always know a gentleman by the +way he carries his liquor." + +"Do you?" said Joan. + +"Sure thing! And Major's a perfect gentleman always. Don't you fret." + +Joan mounted quietly to her room, and undressed in the dark. She did not +want to see her face in the mirror, afraid of the disgust, the loathing, +that must be reflected there--Her father--drunk! The man to whom her +mother had given her love and her life, tipsily furnishing amusement for +a woman who judged gentlemen by the way they carried their liquor!... + +She recalled one other time when she had seen her father in his present +condition. She remembered her mother's stricken, tragic face as she +hurried him out of sight, explaining tremulously, "Daddy's ill, darling. +No games with Daddy to-night--he's ill." + +"But he wants to play! Look, mamma, he _wants_ to play!" the small Joan +had insisted, to no avail. + +And when this strangely interesting Daddy was safe in bed, with Ellen +Neal mounting guard, Joan had been hurried out to the nearest church +(which happened to be a Catholic one, for Mary's was a casual sort of +religion that boasted neither creed nor prejudice); and there, before a +statue where little lamps burned, the child had prayed hard, as she was +bid, that her father might never be ill in just that way again. + +"God may listen to you, even if He's tired of listening to me!" the +mother had whispered, desperately. + +It was because God had listened that Joan was sent later to a Catholic +convent. Mary Darcy's was not the nature to forget favors; and it +occurred to her that there might be worse protectors for a girl who must +one day be motherless than Our Lady of Sorrows. Not every faith is +strong enough to go through life without some creed to cling to. Mary +had offered her child what she could. + +Lying there in the darkness, Joan understood. She wished that she might +have been able to take what her mother offered. She yearned for the +anodyne of simple, unquestioning prayer, for the mesmeric comfort that +comes to the believing from the slipping of rosary beads between the +fingers; above all, for the right to kneel unrecognized in a quiet +confessional and learn from some priest wiser than she in the ways of +men where her duty lay and how she was to follow it. The confessional is +perhaps the secret of the hold the oldest of Christian churches keeps +upon a world which would seem to have outgrown it. That is a +self-reliant nature indeed which does not sometimes feel the need of +guidance at once human and detached. + +But Joan's creed and confessional alike were contained in her troubled +young head; and where a happier woman would have wept and said her +prayers, she set herself sternly to the task of thinking. It seemed to +her that throughout the past weeks she had been shirking an issue, +deliberately drugging her wits with anything that came to hand. Now she +faced conditions squarely. There must be no more drifting. + +She focused an unsparing vision upon her father. Already there were +changes apparent in him, signs of deterioration not entirely physical. +His features seemed slightly blurred from their fine chiseling, there +was a relaxed look about the lips and chin, about the very poise of his +figure. He had lost a little of that indefinable something which gave +him distinction, even in the days when the women of his family tried in +vain to keep him pressed and unspotted. Prosperity was not going to be +good for Richard Darcy. + +Joan pronounced ruthless judgment upon her father: + +"He's done for!" + +And, as Ellen had warned her, it was none of her business.... What then +was her business? Clearly, to keep from being "done for" herself. + +She saw quite clearly that she had been in danger of this. There was +something curiously enervating about the atmosphere of her step-mother's +house, a _laissez-faire_ that was almost--the girl sought for the word +and decided upon "lascivious." Luxury, ease, pleasure--these were the +ends for which her step-mother strove--or rather accomplished without +undue striving, an ability to which the girl gave full due. She knew +that it must take more than mere money to keep so elaborate a household +running without apparent effort. The servants were efficient and +unobtrusive, the accounts scrupulously kept, every nook and cranny clean +and in order. Even Ellen Neal, who knew whereof she spoke, admitted that +the ex-Mrs. Calloway was a housekeeper of parts. But... + +Joan tried conscientiously to fathom the meaning of her "but." She +decided that the house was too like its mistress--over-bathed, +over-perfumed and dressed and manicured--to be quite nice. The windows +were too fluffy with lace, the drawing-room too pretty and satiny, the +library too red. ("Why is it," she had written to Stefan Nikolai, "that +people who never open a book invariably have a red library?") + +A fantastic thought came to her. She wondered whether those strange +houses which are sometimes whispered of even among convent girls, those +palaces of horror where women's bodies are bought and sold, might not +perhaps resemble this home to which her father had brought her ... + +Then she smiled at herself. Vulgar, her step-mother might be; hopelessly +underbred; doubtless in some previous manifestations a shop-girl, a +dressmaker; possibly one of those anomalous beings known in race-towns +as "race-horse women." But she was unmistakably respectable. There was +not a picture on her walls, nor a novel on the shelves of the red +library, which was not, as she herself once remarked to Joan +complacently, "perfectly refined." The girl recalled her evident +uneasiness when sometimes at the dinner-table the talk had waxed a +little too free. She did her step-mother the justice to believe her a +quite decent woman. + +Perhaps the curious sense of enervation was due only to the heat of +midsummer in a Southern city. Now and then the elder Darcys spoke +vaguely of going away, only to decide that it was too much trouble. It +was easier to stay where they were. In a Kentucky July, one follows the +line of least resistance. + +Joan, like the others, slept late into the mornings, and had her coffee +in bed, or went down to the dining-room for it with a negligée over her +nightgown. (Her father had become quite reconciled to negligées, which +at first startled him, accustomed as he was to the neat morning ginghams +of his Mary.) Sometimes she found him departing reluctantly for the +mysterious place he called the Office. Later, people would arrive +connected with the rites of the toilet--the hair-dresser, the manicure, +the masseuse--a chatty person who performed on Effie May what she called +her "facial"; and other things. Cleopatra herself could have devoted no +more time to the care of her body than did the ex-Mrs. Calloway. + +"You've got it to do if you're risin' forty and like to eat," she +explained once to Joan, simply. + +After luncheon, which was brought on a tray--a large tray--to wherever +it happened to be convenient, the ladies once more resumed nightgowns, +if indeed they had ever discarded them, and napped and read until the +sun was low in the sky; when the house like the city woke into +animation, and they prepared to fare forth like fireflies to the evening +revel. Then there were automobile drives to little beer-gardens, where +they ate and drank and sat about among whitewashed tree-trunks, feeling +Bohemian; pleasant moonlight excursions up the Ohio in launches, with a +picnic provided which consisted largely of thermos-bottles; and the +Country Club, always the Country Club. Joan wondered what people had +managed to do with themselves in summer before the days of Country +Clubs. + +It was a life that somehow suggested the Orient, women of the harem +coming forth at sunset to bask on the roofs of the houses; a placid +existence; aimless, perhaps, but pleasant enough. Joan was puzzled to +find the harm in it. Yet that harm was there, she knew. The touch of +Puritanism in the girl told her that to live from day to day with no +duty but pleasure made of pleasure something akin to vice.... And often +in the midst of this harem life she remembered almost with passion that +out beyond her shuttered windows, beyond the clangor of trolley-cars and +the hum and clatter of the dirty streets, was summer--summer, the +loveliest of the year's phases; leaf-shadows on wimpling water, lush +meadows sparkling with the sunrise dew, green-gold glades of the wood +delicious with the smell of warm pine-needles; all the world at fullest +bloom, open like the heart of a rose, waiting. + +It was a sort of nostalgia that took her then for the country she had +never known, not Country Club country, nor the conscious, well-kept +wildness of the parks which give the old river town its only claim to +beauty--but simple wood and meadow and field, where homely folk live +close to the soil they till, concerned with crops and the breeding +season. It was this country her father had meant when he bragged about +Kentucky. It is this country which, deep down under the surface things, +means home to all people of Saxon blood, no matter how far astray they +wander.... + +And as she lay there, as if her wistful thoughts had conjured it into +being, came a whisper of song from the leaves of the magnolia tree just +outside her window; a murmur that died away, and began again, and rose +and soared, melody on wings, above the clang of a trolley-car and the +honk of passing motors. It was a mocking-bird, that voice of the +Southern summer, singing in the glare of the arc-lamps, mistaking it +perhaps for moonlight. + +Joan tiptoed to the window and listened, an aching lump in her throat. +It was her first mocking-bird; she had not known they sang at night. + +"You lovely thing!" she whispered to it. "What are you doing in this +place?... And what am _I_?" + +Then and there she made her plans to get away. + +The thought frightened her a little. She had, despite the ups and downs +of her father's fortunes, led hitherto a very sheltered life. +Fortunately there was her mother's money, hers whenever she chose to ask +for it. She would not be quite penniless. But where to go? + +She thought first of the Misses Darcy, her father's cousins, who had +been most affectionate and kind, particularly since her father's +remarriage. Sometimes she wondered whether this was because they +sympathized with her, or (with a touch of her new cynicism) because they +did not. Effie May had been very generous to the Misses Darcy, remarking +once that she knew what it was to be poor herself. They came frequently +to dine at her lavish table; they appeared occasionally in _chic_ black +costumes, as good as new, which Joan recognized as having served to +mourn the late Mr. Calloway; the limousine was often at their disposal; +and a limousine with a liveried chauffeur was a touch of distinction +hitherto lacking to the Darcy fortunes, even at their palmiest. + +Joan suddenly doubted whether her father's cousins would welcome her +under their roof at the risk of alienating that limousine. She did not +blame them--poor, anxious ladies to whom life had not been very kind. +She simply realized that they were of her father's blood, not her +mother's. + +Her mother's people she did not know. Mary Darcy had managed somehow in +her wanderings to loosen all the ties that bound her to her youth. It +was as if she had deliberately lost herself, hidden herself away with +husband and child from the loving eyes that are too quick to see.... It +was the sort of pride Richard Darcy was quite incapable of +understanding, though pride was a word often upon his lips. But Mary's +daughter understood. Never through her should the quiet tragedy of her +mother's life be revealed to those from whom her mother had chosen to +hide it. + +She wished that Stefan Nikolai were not a man; or that, being a man, he +had a home to which she might have invited herself. But he was a +confirmed wanderer, and Joan felt that a young lady companion, desirable +though she might be as a solace for his declining years, would +undoubtedly hamper his movements. + +It left only Ellen Neal to rely upon. Perhaps there would be enough +money to take a little flat somewhere, with Ellen Neal for servant and +chaperone. A bachelor maid, with a latch-key!--the prospect was rather +alluring. But not in Louisville. She could not leave her father's home +and set up an establishment of her own in the same town without creating +"talk," and, to Joan's training, "talk" was the one thing impossible. + +They would have to go away somewhere, she and Ellen. And study +something, she decided vaguely. Music, art, social service--whatever it +was people did study. Her eye began to kindle. She was the true child of +Richard Darcy, rolling stone by nature and profession; and to such, "the +grass is always greener down the road." New York, Boston, swam before +her dreamy vision; even London, Paris, Rome.... + +She brought herself back to the ungrateful consideration of ways and +means. She feared the money would not run to much in the way of travel. +"A mere pittance," her father had once scornfully called it. But she +knew, or guessed, that all three of them had managed to live on the +income from this pittance during many a period when the Major's star was +not in the ascendant, and she thought that what had provided, however +scantily, for three might be made to provide well for herself and Ellen. +She wished that she had asked questions at the time her mother's will +was read to her. It had seemed so unimportant then. What was hers +belonged surely just as much to her father, guardian for the little +property until such time as she chose to ask him for it. + +Now that the time had come, Joan faced it with some dread. How could +they talk about money, she and he--about her mother's money? It seemed +indelicate, unfeeling, a desecration of sacred things. Nevertheless she +faced it. She solemnly promised herself that not another day should pass +without a complete understanding between herself and her father. + +Possibly she was the only one of Richard Darcy's creditors who ever +managed to put this promise into execution. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +In the heat of the following afternoon, while Effie May dozed unaware +beneath an electric fan, with a box of chocolates convenient to her +drowsy hand, Joan slipped out of the house very quietly and went down +town. She had an odd feeling of exhilaration, as if she had already +escaped--from what, it would have been difficult to say. + +More than one glance of approval followed her slim figure as it flitted +through the sweltering streets, the dark and grimy corridors of the +office building which Richard Darcy had chosen to honor with his +patronage. This, thought patient men as she passed, was as a girl should +look on a July afternoon, all in cool white from her silver-buckled +pumps to the wide hat with a big lace butterfly perched airily upon it. +Surely it was fitting, they thought, that men should slave at their +desks through the endless summer days in order that visions such as this +might flit about the world in dainty idleness; and forthwith applied +gallant noses once more to the grindstone. In the South the idea of +economic independence for women will never be popular. + +Joan, under these friendly glances, was conscious of blossoming into +real prettinees. It was not the first time she had got this pleasant +little sensation out of so simple a matter as going down town. She +wondered whether in any other city of the world it was possible for a +girl to walk the streets alone, receiving from every man who passed--be +he gentleman, clerk, coal-heaver, or small, knowing news-boy--glances of +commendation which were neither impertinent, nor bold, nor even +personal, but simply, as it were expert; an appraisal which flattered +without offense. It was as if, at the sight of a pretty woman, the town +as one man lifted its glass to the toast: + +"The Ladies, God bless 'em!" + +It was this spirit, she thought, which had perhaps given Kentucky its +reputation for feminine pulchritude. To be a beauty is not difficult +where every one encourages the idea, where feminine charm is regarded as +in itself an end and a purpose, to be fortified by every means at the +command of art or nature.... Joan fluttered along with the best, +modestly unconscious of the eyes that paid her homage, but aware +nevertheless of her occasional reflection in plate-glass windows; and it +should be recorded that before she went to her father's office she made +the purchase of a stick of pink lip-pomade and a cake of solid +face-powder, with a little puff and mirror included. Why these articles +should have given her increased courage for an interview with her +parent, is difficult to state; but the fact remains that they did. + +She came presently to a doorway upon which was printed in large gold +lettering: RICHARD DARCY. LOANS AND INVESTMENTS. Joan was secretly +impressed. Perhaps the Office was not the mere figure of speech she had +sometimes fancied it. + +She knocked. No answer came. Listening, she heard inside the familiar +whirr of an electric fan mingling with a sound she could not for the +moment place--a buzzing as of many flies, but rising and falling at more +rhythmic intervals. + +She turned the knob. Within, drawn by an open window through which might +be glimpsed the broad Ohio rolling drowsily, stood a decrepit Morris +chair which Joan recognized as an old friend; wherein lay sprawled at +comfortable length the Major. At his elbow stood a bottle and a glass, +both empty. His handsome nose, forgetting for the moment all +acquaintance with the grindstone, was tilted at the angle of least +resistance, and from it issued the rhythmic buzzing that had puzzled his +child. + +"Daddy!" she said reluctantly. Somehow the Major asleep, with a plump +leg draped over the arm of his chair and his mouth slightly open, made +up in disarming appeal what he lost in impressiveness. He was like a +gray-haired little boy, tired out with playing. + +But, "Father!" said Joan more loudly. "Wake up, please. I've come to see +you on business." + +He opened his eyes with a jerk. "Eh? What's that, what's that, what's +that? Tut, tut! Must have dozed off. What's that?" The eyes tried to +close again, but he was firm with them, and presently recognized his +daughter. "That you, Dollykins? Well, well, well! Come down to pay Dad a +visit, eh? That's nice, that's nice!" + +Suddenly he got to his feet and brought her a chair, reaching at the +same time for his coat. Richard Darcy could not possibly have remained +in a lady's presence coatless, no matter what the temperature. Her +attention was caught by the garment into which he struggled, muttering +apologies the while. + +"Why, Dad," she cried, "_what_ are you putting on?" + +It was not the immaculate gray flannel in which he had started that +morning for the marts of commerce, but a thread-bare, shapeless, densely +spotted garment which Joan recognized with a pang. + +"Your old second-best!" she exclaimed. + +Her father grinned a little sheepishly. "Why--why yes, I keep it here as +an office coat, to save the others, you see. I'm sort of used to it," he +added explanatorily. "It seems to fit into my curves. The new ones +don't. One is supposed to fit into theirs!" + +Joan patted the sleeve of the second-best affectionately. Her eyes were +moist. She felt nearer to her father than she had for weeks. He had kept +the old chair out of their home equipment; he had kept the old coat. Was +he after all not so obliviously content as he seemed in his fine new +surroundings? Did he remember, too, and was he homesick as herself for +the shabby days when he and she and her mother had made a little world +of their own, happy in spite of everything? + +She said with a smile, "You'd better not let Effie May catch you wearing +such a garment!" + +"Heaven forbid!" he exclaimed. "I may confess that it was with some +difficulty I rescued this coat from the ashman, to whom your mother had +given it." + +But his use of the phrase, "your mother," hardened Joan out of her +momentary tenderness. Invariably he spoke of Effie May to her as "your +mother," and of her real mother only as "Mary." The girl was too young +to realize that this may have been because the name meant things to him +which the phrase never would. Mary was something more to Richard Darcy +than Joan's mother.... + +"I have come to talk to you," said Joan, "about business, Father." + +"Business?" The Major's eyebrows lifted. Business meant money, and the +ladies of his family never cared to talk about money! remarked those +eyebrows. Though, to be sure, they sometimes found themselves under the +necessity of asking for it--His hand went instinctively to his pocket. + +"I suppose you are out of pin-money?" he interpreted. "Stupid of me not +to have realized it, Dollykin, though I sent you rather a good deal to +the convent, you remember?" He brought his hand out, filled with silver. +"There! Spend it 'not wisely but too well'--not that one need give any +girl advice on that subject! Dear, dear, how women can make the money +fly!" humorously sighed the Major (whose debts had probably been paid by +women ever since he had been old enough to make them). + +"I should like a chance," said Joan soberly, "to make the money fly, +Father. My money, you know." + +He stared at her, really bewildered. + +She refreshed his memory, flushing. "The money Mother left, with you as +guardian--that I was to have whenever I asked--" + +"Not that she ever expected such a contingency to arrive!" commented the +Major with a sudden accession of stiffness. "You are not of age yet, my +child." + +"Was there any provision in her will about my being of age?" + +"No," he admitted. "Owing to what was of course purely a technical +error, I think there was not. My poor Mary was quite unaccustomed to the +terminology of wills, naturally, and as she and a servant drew it up +between them, you may imagine--" he shrugged indulgently. + +Joan moistened her lips. She was finding the interview even more +difficult than she had imagined. Her father's manner managed to put her +somehow in the wrong. But she held to her purpose. + +"I do not think it was an error, Father. Mother wasn't the sort who says +things she doesn't mean. I believe she foresaw that--that something +might occur which would make me wish to be independent, even if I was +not of age. She could trust my judgment a little. She knew that I'd +never dream of asking for her property unless I had a good reason--I +have a good reason now, Father--I want to be independent." Her voice +trailed off miserably. What she really wanted was to put her arms about +his neck and have a good cry. + +Unconsciously the Major discouraged the impulse. "What is this nonsense +about independence?" he demanded. "My dear Joan, you sound like a New +Woman!" On his lips the phrase was a scathing denunciation. + +Joan explained faintly that she wanted to go away somewhere, to live.... + +The Major was honestly aghast. "Leave your father's roof?" he cried +incredulously. "My child! What is this folly? Never with Richard Darcy's +consent shall a daughter of his leave her father's roof except for the +roof of her lawful husband." (In moments of emotion, the Major was +always liable to these attacks of circumlocution.) + +Joan pointed out to him, still faintly but determinedly, that it was not +her _father's_ roof she wished to leave.... + +Even under his armor of complacency this shot told. He winced. "Have you +been made to feel that? Has my wife ever caused you to believe that you +were an unwelcome member of our household?" he demanded sharply, in a +voice that boded ill for the present Mrs. Darcy if such were the case. + +"No, Father! I shall never give her the chance to make me feel +unwelcome. That is why I want my mother's money." + +The Major toyed with a pen, and seemed to be thinking. "I am not at all +sure," he said presently, "that the will Mary left was legal, my dear; +whether it would stand in the courts--" + +"What does that matter?" interrupted Joan, "when you and I know what +Mother meant?" Something impelled her to add, "And when Ellen Neal +knows, too?" + +The Major looked quickly at her, and looked away. "Perhaps you are not +aware that regardless of any will whatsoever the law entitles me to +one-third of my wife's estate?" + +Joan flushed with an embarrassment that was more for him than for +herself. "You're welcome to it, Daddy; you're perfectly welcome to it, +of course! It isn't that I want to take anything away from _you_. +It's--oh, won't you _please_ understand, and not be hurt with me?" she +implored. "I only want to know how much there is, how much money I can +count on getting every month to live on. Just income, you know. I +wouldn't think of touching the--principal, don't you call it?" + +Richard Darcy rose abruptly and went to the window. It was a fine view +that spread before him--a soothing, mellifluous landscape of golden +river and hazy blue Indiana hills. Indiana, as he sometimes remarked, +was delightful as a background though undesirable as a dwelling-place. +He said so now. He had taken this office entirely for its view, he +informed his daughter. The Major patronized Nature extensively, and +believed that all gentlemen should do so; especially Kentucky gentlemen, +to whom Nature has been so particularly lavish. + +Meanwhile Joan waited. He recalled that her mother used to have the same +habit of silent waiting. Some minds seem incapable of pleasant +digression. + +He sighed, and resumed the subject under discussion. His manner had +changed somewhat, however. He spoke in the persuasive, frank, +"he's-a-good-fellow-and-'twill-all-be-well" tones which he reserved for +directors' boards, stockholders' meetings, and like courts of last +resort, when things unpleasant had to be told and he was the one to tell +them. It should be said in all justice that he rarely side-stepped these +meetings, as he might have done, and allowed the unpleasantnesses to +disclose themselves through others. Nobody could say that Richard Darcy +was a coward. + +"Well, about this little business affair of ours, Dollykins--Of course +the property was never large, though properly invested it might have +brought us in a decent income instead of the trifle Mary was content +with. The merest pittance I assure you, the merest pittance!" + +Joan nodded. She had heard before about the mereness of the pittance. + +"Often during my wife's lifetime I took occasion to point this out to +her. The question of securities and investments being one to which I +have devoted the greater part of my business career, I think I may say +without undue vanity that I am qualified to give advice on such matters! +But Mary had a certain sentimental reluctance about changing investments +which her father had made for her, and sentiment is a thing which I am +always able to respect." + +("Good for mother!" said Joan to herself.) + +"However, after her death--" he paused to pay his Mary the tribute of a +sincere though dramatic sigh--"I began at once to look about for a means +of providing my little girl with more affluence than had hitherto been +at my disposal. The best," he smiled, patting her hand, "is none too +good for my Dollykins! And an opportunity shortly presented itself, a +quite exceptional opportunity, not only of increasing our income +materially, but of assisting to develop the resources of my native +commonwealth." He expanded suddenly with public spirit. "What a State! +Fortunes have been made here, but nothing compared with the fortunes +which shall be made. People have dared to call us a 'pauper +State'--'pauper,' if you please!--with wealth at our command, untouched, +unguessed resources lying just beneath the surface of this beautiful +soil, which would make Aladdin's cave look like--like--" + +"Thirty cents," supplied Joan, in an anxious effort to get to the point. +"I know, Father!--but what did you buy with the money?" + +"Oil-fields!" he said largely. "Oil-fields! Or, to be exact, stock in a +company formed for the purpose of purchasing oil-fields, in which by +good chance I happened to be let in on the ground floor (as we say in +commercial parlance, Dollykins. It is not an expression I should care to +hear you use.) You are the part possessor of something like one thousand +acres of virgin Kentucky soil!" He leaned back in his chair and beamed +on her. + +"Am I?" said Joan dubiously. "It sounds promising." + +Something of her father's elation disappeared in a sigh. "Promising, +yes!--but so far only promising. Oil has been struck all about us, but +none as yet on our holdings. I have by no means given up hope, of +course." (Richard Darcy had never given up hope in any of his lost +causes.) "But I must confess that I have been disappointed. Worse than +disappointed. For a while I was--well, really, desperate!" He smiled +deprecatingly. + +The smile did not for the moment touch Joan's heart; but it told her the +truth she had dreaded. "Father! You mean you have _lost_ the +money?--There's no income left?" + +"Income? Alas, no. And even the principal--Still, the land is there, one +thousand acres of it, and that cannot escape!" he added, brightening. +"There were times when I thought of going to live on the land. Though my +experience of agriculture has been practically nil, many of our +ancestors were planters and stock-breeders, and, as you know, I am a +firm believer in the power of heredity. However, I was credibly informed +that the property would not lend itself to agriculture. I was at my +wit's end. Fancy the position!" (The Major was beginning rather to enjoy +his woe in the retrospect.) "Here was I not as yet firmly established on +my feet (as we say in business parlance); deprived alike of helpmate and +companion, with my child at an expensive boarding-school where I had +promised my dead wife she should remain until the completion of her +education--and I without a dollar I could call my own! Frightful! There +were certain obligations to tradespeople as well.... I am sure I do not +know how for a while Ellen Neal managed to provide us with necessities!" +(Joan thought grimly that she knew how.) "It became necessary +to--ah!--realize on my possessions. First the silver went--I daresay you +have wondered what has become of our family silver, my child? It was +sacrificed to keep a roof over your head. Then the more valuable pieces +of furniture--" + +"Oh, don't!" groaned the girl in a sort of angry pity, "Why didn't you +tell me? Oh, _poor_ father!" + +"You may well say, 'poor father.' It was for you I suffered most, for +you I was afraid. A man alone can always manage to subsist in some +fashion, but a man with a helpless female dependent on him--! Thank +heaven," he said earnestly, "you can never know what it is to be a +father! I thought constantly, 'What a home to bring a young lady into! +What a situation for my child!' I may confess that I prayed--no +gentleman need be ashamed to pray when he is in distress. And then like +light in darkness the answer came to me. At whatever cost to myself, +whatever sacrifice, I must provide comfort for Joan, a home suitable for +the reception of a young gentlewoman. There was nothing left to offer +except--myself. Therefore--" + +His face shone with a noble sadness, and he waited for the generosity of +his sacrifice to sink in. + +"You mean," said Joan slowly, "that it was for my sake you married Mrs. +Calloway!" + +He bowed assent. "Why else? She is an excellent woman, a kind and +excellent and devoted woman. But under happier circumstances, a man of +my position, my traditions, my--shall I say fastidiousness?--" He +shrugged, and allowed the ungallant suggestion to complete itself +without words. + +"I think," said Joan quietly, "we'd better not say 'fastidiousness.'" + +She was struggling, struggling so hard that her hands were clenched, to +do justice to her father. Had she misjudged him? Was his marriage after +all not the horrid thing she had thought it, but an honest effort to +atone to the child he had beggared? Something within her cried "No!" Her +father had sacrificed nothing in the marriage. He had simply yielded, +without a struggle, to the lure of the flesh-pots. Worse than this, the +girl recalled honeymooning incidents that often made her shudder with +mental nausea; certain billing and cooing which she had not always been +able to avoid. It was not only the flesh-pots that had lured him.... + +"Cad!" she cried to herself fiercely. "Cad and liar!" And the terrible +thing was that he did not seem to know he was being a cad and a liar. + +Aloud she said, "And what did Mrs. Calloway get out of the bargain?" + +The Major stared at her, astounded. It was a question so absurd that he +literally could not answer it. Quite unconsciously his eyes strayed +beyond her after a moment to a mirror, as if for reassurance. + +Joan burst out laughing. The laughter was so palpably close to tears +that her father forgave it, and held out his arms to her. "There, there, +my poor child! You're overwrought," he murmured. "Come to Daddy!" + +She had lost all desire to weep on his shoulder now, however, and +Richard Darcy shrank from the look she gave him, as a more innocent man +than he might have shrunk; so level it was, so keen and without mercy. +She saw her father in that moment not only as cad and liar, but as +something very close to a thief. As surely as if she had been told in +words, she knew why her mother, after fighting for years to keep her bit +of property safe for her child, had at the last left it to the +guardianship of her husband. It was to show him she trusted him, to put +him on honor, as it were; to bolster up his waning self-respect by this +final supreme act of faith in him. And he had betrayed her. + +Joan shrugged, and turned to go. Her head hung in shame, and Richard +Darcy knew that the shame was not for herself. What passed through her +brain then was for the moment clear to him, as it is sometimes with +people of one blood. + +"I dare say," he said very low with a sort of dreadful questioning, +"that the law might--might hold me responsible as guardian of your +property, my daughter. If you cared to--if you wished to--make an issue +of it?" + +"What good would that do" she replied brutally. "The money's gone, isn't +it?" + +Then, glancing back, she surprised in his face that look she had almost +forgotten--the frightened, baffled, anxious expression which she +associated with the days when, as Ellen Neal put it, "the Indians were +after him." + +Instantly the reaction came. It was she he feared now, not +"Indians"--she, his own little girl, Joan! + +She ran and put her arms around him tightly, protectingly. "Nonsense!" +she cried, her voice beautiful with the instinct of all the mothers who +had made her. "The law'll never know a thing about it. What has the old +law got to do with you and me? You've done the best you could, Daddy, +I'm sure." + +Richard Darcy answered humbly, like a repentant child, "I have, +daughter, truly I have. I'm sorry...." + +Later, as she walked wearily homeward through streets that no longer +exhilarated her, no bachelor-maid now with a latch-key, nor yet an +independent young traveler in foreign lands, but merely a poor relation +dependent on the bounty of a step-mother, Joan made for herself a new +beatitude: + +"Blessed are the weak," she thought stoically, "for they have got to be +taken care of." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +The two rooms in which Ellen Neal had established herself were on the +second floor of a house that had gone some decades since into a state of +senile decrepitude. But such was the fashion of building in its day that +it showed no particular signs of its approaching end beyond a slight +tilt to leeward and the rather eczematic effect of its stuccoed brick +facade. A high-waisted door surmounted by a fine fan-light and supported +by slender columns which had once been white led into a square panelled +hall from which curved a staircase of exquisite proportions. These +things in a city of larger growth and greater sophistication would have +marked the house as the natural abode of artists and their ilk; but in +Louisville, where art is yet chiefly a thing to be taken in courses by +the elect, it let itself out in rooms for light housekeeping and other +humble purposes. The slender columns were defaced by such signs +as, "Feather Cleaning and Artificial Flowers,"--"Furniture +Upholstered,"--"Plain Dressmaking," etc. + +The neighborhood, except for this one decrepit mansion standing well in +from the sidewalk with an ancient sycamore for company, had long since +forgotten its former claims to fashion; but it was still respectable. +Trust Ellen Neal for that! She had the same flair for respectability as +had the Misses Darcy for gentility. No doubtful character, whether in +house or individual, could fail to yield up its weakness to the +corrosive rectitude of Miss Neal's shrewd eye. + +Joan liked to come to this house, not only because Ellen and the +familiar home furniture were there, but because it carried her romantic +fancy back into the Louisville her father sometimes talked about, the +old South with all its lost glamour of gallantry and derring-do. "_Les +belles dames du temps jadis_" was a phrase that invariably came to her +mind as she entered the graceful, defaced portal. Nearby stood a +street-pump where an actress who was one day to make the charm of +American women world-famous, used to come each morning to draw water, in +her shabby little slippers with a rope of hair over each shoulder--a +lovely young Rebekah at the well. Around the corner stood another old +mansion, now debased to commercial uses, in front of which the +townspeople used to gather daily at a certain hour to watch the languid +progress from door to carriage of a beauty so widely heralded that her +name and her many love-affairs have become history. Here and there in a +neglected fence-corner a ragged rose-bush, or a clump of larkspur +bravely in bloom, spoke to a few observers, such as Joan, of gardens +which had been the lovely setting of lovely ladies long since dead and +dust. + +Twilight was the hour for that neighborhood. Joan liked to fancy Ellen's +house as the darkness fell, with candle-light streaming from the +wide-flung windows, and glimpses within of bells in crinoline and beaux +in tight wrinkled trousers, dancing a quadrille. Among them moved negro +servitors with trays of frosted silver cups, and syllabub (though she +had no slightest notion of what syllabub might be), and black cake, and +small, pricked, beaten biscuit with ham in their insides. And there +would be carriages stopping constantly at the door, to emit more belles +and gallants, girls hoop-skirted and beshawled, who ran lightly up the +curve of the long staircase, with apologies to the couples they +disturbed in passing.... + +Always the house brought such fancies to Joan, and so clearly that she +sometimes wondered whether they were less fancies than race-memories, +souvenirs of Darcys who might have lived and made merry there in the +halcyon days when the old gray river-town was at its zenith; truly, as +it boasted, the Gateway to the South, stopping-place for all travelers +on these floating palaces which no longer ply their leisurely journeys +down the Ohio and the Mississippi to the Gulf. + +Once she had questioned her father about it. "No, that's not one of our +houses, I think," he replied interestedly. "Though it might have been. +Your ancestors were very fond of change, Dollykins--as I am myself. We +seem to have lived in half the houses in Louisville, at one time or +another. But that one has been shabby and tumbledown ever since I can +remember. In my boyhood it was a cheap boarding-house, for actors and +people of that sort, I believe. I knew no one who lived there." + +Joan was disappointed. She would have liked to claim the old mansion as +a relative. + +As she went wearily homeward from her disastrous interview with her +father, Joan suddenly bethought herself of this house, and of Ellen. She +was in no mood just then for the cheerful vulgarities of her +step-mother. On the impulse, she went into the nearest drug-store and +telephoned that she would not be home that night for dinner. + +"Ellen shall cook me some pancakes, and I will help her," she decided, +comforted by the idea. It must be remembered that Joan was only +nineteen. + +Inhabitants in suspenders and dressing-sacks, seeking air on the +doorstep, stared at the girl inquisitively as she entered; but once +within the dimness of the panelled hall she was able to forget these +anachronisms. The quaint elegance of an earlier day was proof against +even Expert Feather-curling, and Upholstery Done Here. + +From above came a sudden tuneless whistling, and then a thump on a door +and a man's voice calling, "Say, Mrs. Neal! Here's a bushel of fine +assorted socks for you, and if you can get enough out of the lot to keep +my feet off the cauld, cauld ground till pay-day, I'll be yours truly." + +She heard Ellen's voice replying in more muffled tones, "All right, sir, +just dump 'em in the door, will you? My hands are in the dough." + +Joan was amused to hear Ellen Neal called "Mrs."--she who was so +unmistakably and truculently a spinster; also she was surprised at the +politeness of her "sir" in response, for Ellen was not given to the +small amenities of social intercourse. The Major himself was rarely +"sir" to Ellen. + +The whistling resumed itself, coming rapidly nearer; and around the +curve of the stairs, which he took two at a time, bounded a young man, +who brought himself and his whistling to a full stop just in time to +avoid carrying Joan with him in his downward course. + +"Whew!--just missed you!" he exclaimed aghast. "You startled me. For a +minute I thought you were a ghost!" + +"Perhaps I am," murmured Joan, and demurely passed on up the stairs. + +He turned and stared after the white ascending figure. She was aware of +his eyes following her. Suddenly he chuckled, "I knew I'd find you +again. And I found the quotation, too! 'Richard the Second,' by William +Shakespeare." + +Joan glanced over her shoulder. "I do not know what you are talking +about," she said frigidly, "and I do not know you from Adam!" She had +brought the impertinence upon herself, but she felt quite able to handle +it--particularly with Ellen Neal just a few steps away. + +Even as she spoke, however, she was aware that she did know this young +man. Something in his voice, in his awkward, deferential manner, brought +back to her memory the too-sympathetic drummer on the train. She lifted +her eyes from his necktie to his face, remembering past regrets. His +ears stuck out. + +"Like the Yellow Kid's!" she thought disgustedly. + +There is nothing in the least romantic about a man whose ears stick out. +He might as well be fat.... + +"'Sad stories of the death of kings,'" he was explaining eagerly. "I +looked it up myself. Sort of sounded like Shakespeare." + +"Oh! I thought it was 'Alice in Wonderland'!" Joan was surprised into +speech. + +"That's a new one on me--'Alice in Wonderland,'"--commented the young +man. "Is it good stuff?" + +"You've never read 'Alice in Wonderland'? What a queer childhood you +must have had!" + +"Didn't have any," he replied, smiling up at her. Then he removed the +smile, made a respectful little bow, and went on out the door. + +Joan found that she was blushing, hotly; and no wonder. She was shocked +by herself. She, one of Sister Mary Agnes's best exemplars of decorum, +had deliberately started and continued a conversation with a strange +young man met by chance on the dark stairway of a house where assuredly +gentlemen did not live. ("Unless very poor gentlemen," she amended; for, +ears or not, he seemed somehow to belong in the category of gentlehood.) +Nor had she even terminated the conversation. It was he who had done +that. He had shown more sense of the fitness of things than had she, +Joan Darcy! + +It was all the effect of the hospitable old hall, Joan decided. The +house, like the roof of a friend, had introduced them. But what was he +doing in such a house? It was not the sort of abode that would appeal, +she fancied, to necktie drummers. + +She opened Ellen's door without knocking. "Hello, there! Who's that I +met on the stairs, and why does he call you 'Mrs.,' you giddy old +fraud?" + +A spoon dropped to the floor with a clatter as Ellen turned, beaming. +"Land sakes! You might as well kill a person as scare her to death," she +complained, far too pleased to admit it. "What you doin' down town this +time o' day, all dressed up like lady-come-to-see? What do you want, +eh?" + +"Pancakes," explained Joan, ripping off her long gloves. "I'm going to +stay to supper, Nellen, so get me an apron and let's begin." + +Ellen's smile widened. "Pancakes! On a hot night like this?" + +Joan nodded. "Um-humm! And lemonade," she said, "and anything else you +can think of that's indigestible. Got any pickles?" + +"What would a lone woman be doin' keepin' house without pickles?" +replied Ellen scornfully, producing them. "And there's a batch of +cinnamon rolls in the oven this minute, just as if I was expectin' you." + +With a sigh of content, the girl reached down a yellow crockery bowl out +of the cupboard--she was on quite intimate terms with Ellen's +cupboard--and tying a gingham apron about her neck, proceeded to stir +batter. It was the same crockery bowl, and perhaps the same gingham +apron, in which she had stirred batter so long ago that she had been +obliged to stand on a footstool in order to reach the kitchen-table. +There was something substantial and fixed and unchangeable about Ellen +Neal and her possessions, something that spelled home, though it was +only home for other people. + +"But you haven't distracted my mind," said Joan judicially, "from the +fact that a young man of your acquaintance calls you 'Mrs.' without +correction. You haven't eloped or anything lately?" + +Ellen Neal bridled. "How you do go on, Joan! It makes it look better for +a lone woman to be livin' by herself if she's called 'Mrs.' Men ain't so +apt to get fresh with her." + +"No?" murmured Joan. She gazed at Ellen's gaunt unloveliness with +twinkling eyes. "Don't tell me men have been getting fresh with you, +Nellen!" + +The other's jaw snapped. "They have not, and they better not try it." + +"Don't you think it's rather a risk darning their socks, then?" murmured +the girl wickedly. "It might give them false ideas." + +"I only do it for one of 'em, and he pays me good. Anything's proper so +long as you get paid for it." + +Joan laughed aloud. "Why, Mrs. Neal, Mrs. Neal, you shock me! What a +perilous idea!" + +"You're awful smart, guyin' me, but I'd be ashamed to think the kind of +thoughts you're thinkin' now," said Ellen Neal, unsmiling. "And you a +spinster yourself! Thoughts are as bad as deeds, any day--worse, 'cause +they come easier. That's one thing I've noticed about you lately, Joan. +You seem to know about things that ain't ladylike, somehow. Something's +happened to you, child. You ain't the nice little girl you used to be." + +"No," admitted Joan, "I'm not. And the world's not the nice little world +it used to be, either." She went over and laid her head on her friend's +bony shoulder. "Don't scold me to-day, dear. You're right, but--Oh, +Nellen, father's lost our money! And there's nothing in the world I can +call my own. Just absolutely nothing!" + +A silence fell. "So," said the old woman. "You've found out, at last, +have you? I've wondered how long it would take. And now what you goin' +to do about it?" she demanded suddenly. "Are you goin' to law?" + +Joan shook her head. "You know what Mother would say to that." + +Ellen sighed. "I suppose she wouldn't hear to it." It was a curious fact +that when these two spoke of Mary Darcy, they always spoke as if she +were still alive, and near them. "Anyway, you can't squeeze blood out of +a turnip--though I must say I'd like to see _somethin'_ squeezed out of +them kind of turnips, if it's only insides!" she added quite +blood-thirstily. "Oh deary me, deary me! How often I've begged your ma +to sneak what there was left out of his reach and put it away where I +keep mine." + +"Where's that, Nellen?" + +"In an old stockin'-fut under my bedtick, where you can bet no man on +earth ever laid eyes on it, or ever will!" + +The smell of scorching bread suddenly filled the room. "Land sakes, my +cinnamon-rolls! And I'd promised that boy to save him some for +breakfast." + +"Breakfast?" exclaimed Joan, glad enough of a diversion from discussing +her undiscussable father. "You mean to tell me you're not only keeping +your young man darned, but breakfasted? Nellen, I'm positively jealous!" + +"You wouldn't be if you could see him eat," said the other seriously. +"Acts like he ain't had enough food to fill him sence he was born. He +was gettin' all his meals out to a restaurant before I come, a place he +calls 'The Sign of the Dirty Spoon.' Jokin', I suppose--he's a great one +for jokes. But he looked so skinny, and was always takin' something for +dyspepsy, so I told him I'd give him a good breakfast anyway, just to +start the day on. Say, Joan, you ought to see him put it away! He says +once, 'I 'spose this is what you call home-cookin', ain't it?' 'Land, +sakes,' says I, 'don't you know home-cookin' when you see it?' 'I ain't +never seen it before!' he says, laughing." + +While she talked Ellen was bustling capably about, laying a cloth, +getting out dishes, dropping Joan's batter into a sizzling saucepan, +from whence arose dense, pleasing vapors. + +"Here, Joan, mix some cinnamon in that sugar, 'less you'd ruther have +molasses on 'em. You ought to see the room he's got. Nothin' but books, +all over the tables, piled up on the floor, even on the window-sills--" + +"Books?" said Joan, pricking up an ear. She had not imagined the +wide-eared young man in his dapper clothes a student. + +"Whatever people want all them books around for I can't see," said +Ellen. "Dust collectors, I call 'em; but he says they're his college +career. Always will have his joke! And the dirt--! He had a colored +woman in to do for him before I come, and guess what she used to do with +her dust?" She paused dramatically, arms akimbo. + +Joan admitted her imagination unequal to the task. + +"Swept it under the bed and left it there! Land!" said Ellen Neal, "how +I do hate a nigger! You can bet I got that place to rights in a jiffy." + +"I can indeed," murmured Joan, "and I can also bet he couldn't find a +thing belonging to him for a week afterwards." + +Ellen grinned. "You've the truth of it. There wasn't a morning for about +a week but what he'd thump on the floor and yell down the chimney, 'Mrs. +Neal, _oh_, Mrs. Neal! For heaven's sake where is my blue necktie?' or, +'In the name of Jehoshaphat, what have you done with my other pair of +pants?' It kind of reminded me of your pa," she said, sighing. "I been +lookin' after him ever sence. There now, ain't you goin' to eat your +pancakes now you've got 'em?" + +Joan drew up her chair to the oil-cloth covered table, and, despite the +heat and her troubles, made such a meal as she had not eaten for weeks +at her step-mother's elaborate board. Ellen sat opposite her, with no +servant-and-mistress nonsense to complicate the pleasure of hospitality. +Sometimes the old woman waited on Joan, and sometimes Joan waited on +Ellen, all in a friendly democracy that would have caused Major Darcy's +hair to rise on end. It had been his conscientious effort for years to +keep Ellen Neal "in her place." The difficulty was in the ups and downs +of the Darcy ménage to know just what might be considered Ellen's place. + +Not troubling themselves with any such niceties of status, the two ate +their pancakes and drank their lemonade and otherwise courted +indigestion contentedly, meanwhile chatting about the young man from +upstairs, who for some reason began to appeal to Joan's imagination. His +name, it appeared, was Archibald Blair. + +"Archibald Blair! Nellen, how romantic! Like an English novel. Young +Lord Toodledeboots ruined at Monte Carlo, hiding his poverty and a +broken heart in lodgings. I suppose these might be called lodgings? If +only his ears had been made to fit him!" + +She no longer thought of him as a necktie drummer. The books made a +difference. It seemed unlikely that necktie drummers would be on terms +of first-name intimacy with Shakespeare. Moreover, his awkward yet +somehow easy and unassuming air, like that of a friendly young dog who +takes for granted that the world will be glad to see him, marked him as +one not belonging to what her father called "the canile." No, he was a +student and a gentleman, stranded by some freak of fortune in this +near-slum, a youthful Beloved Vagabond. (It was the year when Locke's +great book cast a glamour over all strange men in shabby clothing.) +Although Archibald Blair was by no means shabby; on the contrary, rather +appallingly dapper. + +"I wonder how he happens to be living in a house like this?" she +ruminated aloud. + +"And why wouldn't he be living here?" demanded Ellen tartly. "It's cheap +and decent, and there's some folks that don't like to go forever hoppin' +from one place to another, like fleas on a dog's back. He's lived in +that same room upstairs ever since he can remember." + +"Oh, has he?" Joan's eye kindled. It occurred to her that the young +man's history might have some connection with the history of the house +itself. "Ellen, I have it! It's the old family mansion, belonged to his +father and grandfather and great-grandfather, and _of course_ he wants +to go on living in it. I would myself!" + +Ellen grinned. "If there's a romantical notion to be found, trust you +for finding it. But if you really want to know, folks do say--" She +hesitated, under the hallucination (which many virtuous women share) +that she disliked to repeat gossip. + +"Yes, yes? Do go on, Nellen!" + +"Well, they do say that if he's got a father at all it's more than he +knows, let alone a grandfather, and great-grandfather. I had it from a +woman downstairs (her that curls feathers, and she got it straight from +somebody who used to live in the neighborhood when this was a actors' +boardin'-house), that he got left here when he was a little boy, by his +mother, in hock for her board-bill. And she never come back for him." + +Joan gave a gasp. "Oh," she cried. "Oh! poor woman!" + +Ellen eyed her curiously. "Poor _woman_? I should think you'd say 'poor +child'!" + +"Poor both of them! But can't you see how much greater the tragedy must +have been for the woman, who knew--who was to blame? Imagine how she +must have dreamed of that pitiful little boy with his nose pressed +against the window-pane watching for her--and she not able to come for +him! Ellen--That's what he's doing here now! Waiting for his mother to +come back!" + +"If he is, I hope it's with a club in his hand," muttered the other +angrily. "Why wasn't she 'able to come,' I'd like to know?" + +"Perhaps she died. Or, she couldn't get enough money, or oh--oh, Ellen, +don't you _see_? She didn't dare to come for him! He was getting too +big, noticing things. For his own sake she had to give him up!" There +were tears in Joan's eyes, ready to spill over. + +Ellen paused and stared at her. "Well!" she said at last. "If I had your +imagination, Joan Darcy, I'd go to a hospital and get it cut out. It +ain't safe! Here you are blubbering over the troubles of a woman who +maybe never lived, and probably was a bad lot if she did--and a'most +making me blubber over her myself!" + +Joan laughed and jumped up. "Here, let me help with the dishes. You wash +and I'll wipe. But what a funny, pitiful little boy he must have been +with those stick-out ears and those big, innocent-looking front teeth of +his! I wonder why it is that big front teeth always do make a person +look so innocent, Ellen?" + +"Seems to me you noticed a lot to have seen Mr. Blair only once." + +Joan did not think it necessary to mention that she had seen him more +than once. + +"I always notice things--I can't help it. Anyway, I'm glad you keep the +poor thing darned and comfy! It's only charity." + +"Charity nothing. He pays me good, and prompter than I ever got paid +before in all _my_ life," disclaimed the other rather tactlessly. + +While she washed and put away her dishes, the girl made a tour of +inspection about the rooms that were so full of associations to her. She +smiled and nodded at the two familiar Landseer dogs on the wall, which +had been a familiar part of every dining-room she remembered. She patted +the worn chairs affectionately, and went in to pay her respects to the +shorn four-post bed, which looked more at ease in its present +surroundings than in others where she had seen it. The panelled walls, +as nearly white as scrubbing could make them, the wide-silled windows +with arched casements, the tall mantel-shelf, the finely molded ceiling +which years of coal soot and cobwebs and general neglect had not +sufficed to rob of dignity, all made a more suitable setting than Ellen +guessed for her mistress's household goods; and to Joan these two +bare and shabby rooms had become a haven of refuge. Tenement though it +was, there was more of genuine beauty in the place where Ellen did plain +dressmaking for very humble customers than in all the elaborate +establishment with which Richard Darcy had managed to provide his +daughter. Joan was very dependent upon beauty. + +Later, Ellen walked out with her through the languorous summer evening +to the house which she never called home. Nothing more had been said +between them of the loss of her independence; but the girl felt soothed +and comforted, strengthened as the heart is always strengthened in the +presence of a deep though inarticulate devotion. She slipped her hand +into the other's thin arm, and so linked they walked along without much +talk between them, listening as they passed to pleasant sounds from many +a shadowed porch and garden, guitar music, singing, the inevitable +hushed murmur of boy and girl voices commingled, which is as natural to +a summer gloaming as the twitter of birds in spring. + +There came again to Joan, for the first time in weeks, something of the +glamour, the sense of promise, which had touched her in the summer past +when she walked at night with her father through the strange city where +he had once been young. It was as if Romance brushed her in passing with +shadowy skirts, and Joan felt that she must catch at them, cling to +them, before it was too late. Youth is so short, so short!... + +Ellen, too, felt the witchery of the soft night; but to the Ellens, +Romance comes only vicariously. + +"Joie," she said after a long silence, "ain't it time you was having +some steady company yourself, child?" + +The girl did not smile at the phrase. It voiced too well her own secret +thoughts. There had been something strangely unreal, unnatural, about +the past weeks. She had brought nothing out of her experience with life +so far, not even a friend--for Stefan Nikolai was merely an inheritance. + +"You're right," she said soberly "I suppose I ought to have a 'steady +company' at least by this time. That ought to be simple +enough!--Marriage is about the only thing left for a girl in my +position, isn't it?" + +"Who's talking about marriage? You don't have to marry every fellow you +walk out with, I should hope," said Ellen surprisingly. "I've walked out +with quite a few myself!... But as to gettin' married, Jo--it's about +the only thing for a girl in any position, I guess, even if she finds +out afterwards that she's picked a lemon. Lemons are better than +nothing." + +"Why, Mrs. Neal!" laughed Joan. "What sentiments from a confirmed +spinster-person!" + +To which Ellen replied quietly, "It's the spinsters who know." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +The discovery of her dependence upon her step-mother marked an end to +one period of Joan's existence: the apathetic period. Heretofore she had +allowed their daily life, their amusements, their acquaintanceships, to +remain in the hands of Effie May. If that lady chose, as she naïvely put +it, to "break into society," and society was willing, Joan was amenable, +though a little dubious as to society's taste. She was amenable, that +is, so long as she was not called upon too actively to assist in the +process. Pride forbade her making any effort to interest or to be +interested in people who chose to accept the present Mrs. Darcy as one +of themselves. To the Louisville she knew so far, she was merely the +appendage of her parents, a captive chained to the triumphal +chariot-wheel of her step-mother. + +That was all very well so long as she knew that she might snap the chain +at any moment and be free. But a dependence that seemed likely to +continue indefinitely was not to be borne by what the Major would have +called "the proud spirit of a Darcy." Joan, waking in the early dawn, +rose and dressed (not in negligée), demanded breakfast at an hour when +the astonished servants were barely awake themselves, and proceeded to +clear her decks for action.... + +Ellen had sowed a useful suggestion in her brain. There was one freedom +open to all young girls who were not too exacting in their demands: the +freedom of marriage. Joan decided to marry. She also selected the +victim. + +It was the first time she had thought of him for weeks; or of "the +girls," those heart's companions with whom she had shared for two years +her inmost hopes and desires (to say nothing of hats and gloves and +handkerchiefs); with whom at parting she had exchanged vows of lifelong +fealty. Their letters had accumulated unanswered. In the shock and shame +of her father's marriage, she had put away childish things, among them +her schoolmates, who seemed in the retrospect immature and puerile. Even +Eduard of the interesting past had been put away for the moment with +outgrown things, and had remained (fortunately) unthanked for his +parting flowers. As for the love-letter which had accompanied them--Joan +wondered with a start of dismay what had become of it. + +She found it neatly smoothed of its tell-tale wrinkles (the reader will +remember that for a day and a night it had reposed against Joan's +heart), filed among the letters in her desk, where it had been duly +placed after being duly read, doubtless, by one of Mrs. Darcy's +efficient housemaids. + +The girl studied it with a more dispassionate eye than she had brought +to its first perusal: + + My flowers must tell you what I dare not, dearest little girl + of my heart. You will understand why I cannot say good-by. + Truly, "to part is to die a little." Forgive me!--EDUARD. + +Joan decided that this could not, after all, be called a love-letter; or +if so, it was of a noncommittal type distinctly piquing to the vanity. +She had given a good many of her precious holidays to the reforming of +Mr. Desmond. + +"So!" she thought, with a small gleam in her eye. "I was merely a child +that amused him for the moment! He was probably laughing at me.... I +wonder if he would laugh now?" + +She went to her mirror and examined the reflection within impartially. + +Something of what she had always candidly recognized as her plainness +seemed to have disappeared. She was no longer scrawny, for one thing. +Her lazy life of the past weeks, and possibly Effie May's beauty +experts, whose ministrations she accepted so ungratefully, had put a +gracious covering over her young bones, and she discovered with some +excitement the rudiments of a figure. Her straight, burnished hair (she +had so far resisted all temptations to "marcel" it) gave her what she +fancied a rather _distinguè_ air, and her skin had that rare, pale +transparency of perfect health which is lovelier even than rosiness. Her +eyes had always given perfect satisfaction. She nodded to them in +affectionate fashion, as to good friends (she had always fancied that +one of them was her brain and the other her soul, and even suspected +which was which--the left wearing rather a twinkle, in comparison with +the right, which had a mild, innocuous expression). Her mouth was too +large. + +"But then," she reflected, "large mouths are very much worn by heroines +nowadays, and mine isn't mushy or loose at the corners, anyway. There's +a draw-string to it." + +Of the nose the less said the better. It was merely a nose. + +On the whole, standing there in her pretty morning dress, with the grace +and freshness of nineteen years about her like an aura, young Joan +decided in all modesty that she was one of the women who have their +moments, and that such moments ought not to be wasted. + +She sat down at once and indited a little note to Eduard Desmond +expressing gratitude for "flowers which had meant so much to her," and +explaining that she had not written before "because it had seemed best +not to"--the inference being that now danger was past, and time had made +it safe for her to think of him. + +"That," mused Joan nibbling her penholder, "ought to make him sit up and +take notice, I should think?" She had been from her cradle something of +a student of her fellow-creatures. + +She wrote to his niece, her friend Betty, as well; a long, confidential +screed, mentioning the fact of her father's marriage without comment and +allowing her friend to read between the lines. Betty had an adored +mother of her own. + +Then Joan rested on her oars and awaited results, which were prompt in +coming. Not for nothing had she been the prize letter-writer of her +school, entrusted by friend and foe alike with the handling of anything +that was most delicate in the way of correspondence. + +A few days later she was able to remark to her family that she had been +invited to visit her schoolmate, Betty Desmond, at the Desmond country +place near Philadelphia. + +"The people you spent the Christmas holidays with in Washington? A fine +old Irish name," commented the Major, who made something of a specialty +of names. "I have not the pleasure of their acquaintance, but I am sure +the good Sisters would not have permitted you to visit them if they had +not been--ah! desirable acquaintances." + +"They are quite rich, if that is what you mean," said his daughter +bluntly. Her manner to her father had latterly undergone a change which +was not altogether nice. + +The Major's eyebrows shot up in pained surprise. "Joan! That is +certainly irrelevant, not to say--" + +"And there's an eligible young man in the family," continued the girl +imperturbably. + +He stared at her, speechless. "My child!" he exclaimed after a moment. +"One would suppose you were actually--" + +"Hunting for a husband? I am," she finished. "What else did you expect +me to do?" + +A burst of laughter from Effie May relieved the situation. "Of course +she's hunting for a husband! All girls are, unless they're lookin' for +trouble. Good for you, dearie! You'll land him, too, I'll bet my hat. +Men? Lord," she cried, "they're as easy as fallin' off a log, once you +get the hang of 'em!" + +But the Major continued to gaze at his daughter incredulously. "To +think," he murmured, "that I should live to hear _my daughter_ speak in +such a manner!" It was evidently not the idea which shocked him, so much +as the indelicate expression of it. + +Joan rose suddenly and left the table. + +Effie May came to her afterwards, intent on comforting. "There, there, +girlie, you mustn't mind what your papa says; he's just a man. Besides, +he's so genteel in his instincts he's hardly human. Your mamma would +have understood, just like I do. _She_ wouldn't of thought you'd said +anything unrefined!" + +"Thank you," muttered Joan bitterly. + +"Why, it's the most natural thing in the world that a girl wants a house +of her own, and a man of her own, and so forth! Only most of 'em ain't +honest enough to come out flat and say so.... I'm for you, dearie. +You're to have the trip, of course, and anything else you want, just let +me know. As if I was really your mother--I mean it!" + +"Thank you," said Joan again. + +It was not the first time she had been disconcerted to find the enemy +fighting her battles. What is to be done with an enemy which will not +keep its proper place? + +Effie May concerned herself in the preparations for departure with a +whole-hearted generosity which occasioned Joan some secret pangs of +remorse. As a step-relative she knew that she herself had left much to +be desired. In vain the girl protested that she had already too many +clothes, too much finery. + +"Nonsense! A girl can't have too much finery," was the rejoinder. "Even +if you don't get to wear all your pretties, it makes you feel sort of +easy, sort of good-as-anybody like, just to know you've got 'em in the +closet." + +With her own hands she ran ribbons and rearranged trimmings and packed, +to the secret jealousy of Ellen, keeping up a constant stream of shrewd +comment and advice, some of which Joan found worth remembering. + +"The trouble with you is, girlie, you think too much," was one of the +pearls that fell from her lips. "Just let go and have a good time, and +don't take yourself so hard. You can feel as different as you like +inside, just so folks don't know it. Folks are sort of leery of what +they aren't used to. See?" + +Joan often wondered in what school of experience her step-mother had +gleaned her curious wisdom. + +Ellen Neal was the only one of the three elders who watched her going +with any uneasiness. + +"Look here, Joan," she said once, abruptly. "When I spoke like I done +about marriage being the best thing for a girl, I meant marriage with +love, child--marriage _with love_. Like your mamma's." + +The simile was unfortunate. The eye that Joan believed to be her brain +twinkled mockingly. "Do you mean to insinuate that marriage and love are +not always synonymous? Why, Mrs. Neal, you put so many strange ideas +into my young head lately! Seriously," she added, seeing that the +other's anxious gravity did not relax, "I don't believe it would be hard +to pump up a little love in return for--lots of it, say, and a place of +your own in the world, and independence." + +"Where there's love there ain't apt to be much independence, I've +noticed," remarked the other. + +"All the more reason to do without love, then!" cried Joan, with +triumphant logic. + +But she hugged Ellen remorsefully, glad that the good woman could only +guess at what was going on at the moment in her nursling's brain. + +Her step-mother's casual advice and her own inner musings had resulted +in one firm determination. If she missed romance, experience, all the +real things of life, it would not be for lack of meeting them halfway. +She would be no longer a passive agent. She would be bold and +reckless--even if necessary a little Fast; though how to go about being +Fast was somewhat of a puzzle to Mary's daughter. + +"If people want to say things, or squeeze my hand, or anything like +that," she told herself rather vaguely, "I must remember not to hold +back and be standoffish.... How do I know what I like unless I try?" + +But while the noun on her tongue was plural and indefinite, the noun on +her mind was single and masculine and very definite indeed. It behooved +Mr. Desmond to look to himself. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Joan, already exhilarated by a foretaste of independence, and enjoying +to the full what Turgenev calls "that carelessness, that deuce-take-it +air which comes out so naturally in foreign travel," changed at Broad +Street for a local train that stops at all the smart little +flower-bedecked stations which make the environs of Philadelphia so +charming to the eye. Neat turnouts were waiting at most of them, +dog-carts with dapper grooms at the horses' heads, big machines driven +by bare-headed young people in sports clothes; here and there a quietly +elegant brougham or limousine with men in livery on the box. + +As her train passed, she caught glimpses of mellow, red-brick houses +that gave the effect of age without decadence; tree-lined avenues, +hot-houses, gardens, velvet lawns. It was country that lacked the broad, +picturesque loveliness of Kentucky landscape, but it had a definite +charm of its own--a well-ordered, leisurely, finished permanence which +reminded one that not only American history but American society had its +stronghold here, changing less than elsewhere in our adolescent land. +There was no suggestion, as in the South, of having seen better days; no +raw, temporary promise of the future as in the Middle West. Joan +remembered having heard that many people who danced in the Philadelphia +Assembly of to-day bore the same names as those who danced in it when +Philadelphia was the country's capital, and Mr. Washington its first +President. She wondered hopefully whether Desmond was one of those +names.... + +People got in and out of the train, carrying golf-bags and +tennis-rackets. Joan smoothed the skirt of the "little model" Effie May +had provided for traveling purposes; a fawncolored crêpe with lacy cuffs +and collar, which had at first given her qualms of uneasiness. There was +a long cloth coat to match, and a hat of the costliest simplicity; and +she was not used to traveling dressed as for a party. Now, however, she +was grateful for her step-mother's insistence, with a gratitude which +increased in proportion to the distance between them. + +"Always dress up on a train," was Effie May's sage counsel, "so that +people will notice you're a lady, and treat you according." + +People had undoubtedly noticed, and she had been treated "according"; +and now toward her journey's end it was particularly agreeable to feel +that among these fellow-travelers on pleasure bent she need have no +qualms as to her personal appearance, at least. Underneath she might +know herself to be plain, poor little Joan Darcy, an adventuress in +search of a husband; but on the surface she was as affluent a young lady +as ever rang for the porter to lower a shade that was within two feet of +her hand. + +It may be premature to state that our heroine had already adjusted her +future to her present pleasing environment; but the fact remains that +when the train stopped at the station for which her subconscious mind +had fortunately been listening, Joan was just in the act of moving Ellen +Neal and her mother's furniture into a large Quaker house with a gambrel +roof.... + +Betty was waiting for her in a dog-cart; brown as a berry, with sleeves +rolled up, and a bare, tousled head, quite a different young person +already from the shy little girl who had been her slave at the Convent. + +"Hurry up, old Joie!" she called, wrestling with the cob, who rose on +his hind legs to snort at the snorting engine, while a diminutive groom +tried with frantic leapings to reach his head. "The Rabbit hates to +stand! Run and get Miss Darcy's things, Jenks" (this to the groom) "and +be quick about it, will you? You see," she explained as Joan climbed +perilously aboard and was duly kissed, "when I left, Mother was two up +and four to play, and it's the finals, and she's already got a leg on +the cup. Great, isn't it? We'll have to gallop all the way to get there +before it's over!" + +"What _are_ you talking about?" asked mystified Joan. "A leg on the +cup--!" Hitherto golf had not entered into her vocabulary; though she +had gazed at it from afar, wondering at the strange ways men choose to +waste their golden hours. + +"Why, the tournament, of course! Didn't I write you? We're deep in it. +Where are your clubs, by the way?" She glanced at Joan's bag and +parasol-case. "Oh, dear! Have you left them on the train?" + +"Clubs?--You mean golf-sticks?" asked Joan, with misgivings. "Why, I +haven't any. I don't play golf." + +"_Don't play golf?_" cried Betty in genuine dismay. "What ever will you +do with yourself here? And how on earth do you amuse yourself in +Kentucky? Just ride?" + +"Why, yes," said Joan feebly, "we--we ride." + +Once, indeed, during a period of comparative affluence, the Major had +possessed for a while a horse of the family type; and under his +instruction Joan had occasionally mounted the complaisant beast and +propelled it fearfully about back streets, feeling that something was +due her Kentucky traditions. But suppose she were expected to mount, for +instance, some such fire-eater as the Rabbit! + +"I don't believe I've brought my riding-clothes," she murmured hastily. + +"Goose! Why not? But I dare say Mother can fit you out with trousers," +said Betty, glancing casually at her friend's slim length of limb. +"Mine'd be too short. With trousers and a sweater you'll be all right." + +Joan's eyes opened wide, but her mouth remained closed. After all, she +was out for experience. If it included meeting a violent death while +clad in trousers and a sweater, so be it. + +"Uncle Neddy'll find you a decent horse somewhere," Betty was running +on. "He's awfully keen about your coming, Jo. I'm afraid you're going to +have him on your hands a lot, especially if you don't play golf." + +Joan brightened. "Why? Doesn't he?" + +"Lord, no! Too much of a duffer. Likes to do lazy things, like riding, +and fooling around in a canoe, admiring nature. With widows and such!" +She made a face. + +"Widows?" Joan pricked an ear. + +"Grass or sod. It's all one to our Neddy," murmured his flippant niece. +"Girls are not grown up enough for him, of course--Except you. He always +did take notice when you were around. I remember. But then you were +always more grown up than the rest of us, somehow." She gave her friend +a glance full of the old shy admiration. "Do you know, you've gotten to +be awfully pretty too. Perhaps it's all those grand clothes!" + +"Perhaps it is," smiled Joan, flushing. + +At school she had been the poor girl of her group, the one who had most +often to borrow and least often to lend the simple fineries current +among them for special occasions. Now under her friend's appraising eyes +she was a little uncomfortable, wondering whether the dress she had on +was perhaps a little too "grand" by comparison with Betty's plain linen. +Linens she owned herself, but braided, embroidered, lace-inserted out of +all recognition as such. It was a physical impossibility for Effie May +to select anything plain. Under her manipulation, the merest shirt-waist +became what the salesladies refer to majestically as a "bloose." +Sartorially Joan was entirely in her step-mother's hands. + +"But Southern girls always do dress up a lot, don't they?" said Betty, +innocently continuing her line of thought. "You ought to have seen the +one the Ritters had visiting them last month! All ruffles, and parasols, +and chiffon veils. Couldn't swim or go for a ride or do anything on +account of her complexion. All she did was to dance and sit out in +corners with people. It was disgusting!" + +"And didn't your uncle take notice even of _her_?" murmured Joan. + +"Oh, of course. She was as good as a widow, you see--she'd had so many +affairs. The men simply flocked. Whenever she came on to the +tennis-court she'd break up the game, and we could hardly find enough +men to make up a foursome, they were all so busy hanging around. It was +too queer! I never could see the attraction in rolling your eyes, and +flashing your dimples, and dropping your r's like a colored servant, +could you?--Not," she added hastily, "that _all_ Southern girls are that +sort, Joie dear! You, for instance!" + +"I should hope not," murmured Joan; who had decided on the instant to be +exactly that sort herself, so far as in her lay. It suited the +elaborateness of her wardrobe; it saved her from golf and tennis and +other amusements which bade fair to be terrifying in this sporting +community--particularly the embarrassments of horseback riding. Joan was +too much of an egotist to enter willingly into competitions where she +had no chance to excel. + +No; the languid beauty was her rôle for the next few weeks; and she +flattered herself that after several months of Louisville she ought to +be able to drop her r's and roll her eyes and flash her dimples with the +best, particularly if the audience were not too experienced in +Southernism. In school theatricals she had always distinguished herself. +Moreover, she had the advantage of a lifelong model to work from; for +Richard Darcy was one of those sons of Dixie whose characteristics +become more markedly Dixotic the farther they travel from base. + +Let the Ritters' guest look to her laurels! + +By way of preparation Joan got out her lip-stick and her powder-puff and +did what she could to improve on nature, Betty watching her the while in +amused respect. + +"I'm glad _I_ don't have to mess my face up with things like that," she +commented frankly. "But I suppose when one goes in for a real complexion +it's got to be taken care of." + +Joan murmured something explanatory about the ravages of a Southern sun; +and so entered upon her brief and eventful career as a Kentucky beauty. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +Joan's respect for the sterner sex, never very exaggerated, was not +increased by the avidity with which they swallowed, one by one, her +inexperienced hook, bait and all. Evidently her fellow-men had very +little use for nice, intelligent, modest young girls in comparison with +the Brazen Hussie.... For Joan had no illusions about herself, either. +She had joined, temporarily it is true, and for what seemed to her +legitimate reasons, the order of the Brazen Hussies. + +She put into practice as many of her step-mother's precepts as she could +recall, and found that they worked astonishingly well. She also +cultivated a beauty-manner, modeling herself on a certain Louisville +belle whose manoeuvers she had observed with interest. She became +helplessly sweet and very, very feminine; and she smiled whenever there +was an excuse for smiling. It was a new smile she had practised before +the mirror; an intimate, confiding, personal affair that crinkled up her +long eyes charmingly, and showed at least two thirds of her good white +teeth. Eduard Desmond occasionally referred to these teeth as "pearls," +though they were hard and sharp and strong as a young squirrel's: Eduard +being the sort of person who takes his similes ready-made out of poetry. + +Surprisingly enough, considering the sporting nature of the community in +which she found herself, Joan heard a good deal of poetry during this +visit. The moon happened to be full, and Longmeadow edged upon a river; +one of those pleasant, cosy little streams that are designed by an +all-wise Providence for canoes to float upon in summer evenings. By day +other girls had their innings on golf-links and tennis-court (though +even by day our heroine was not idle). But at night with the moon she +came into her own. She made her canoe engagements days ahead, not too +frequently with Eduard; and she came to the conclusion that just as +infants at a certain stage must go through the teething period, so +somewhat later they must go with equal painfulness through the poetry +period. It gave her quite a motherly feeling toward her admirers; which +fortunately she was able to dissemble. + +By contrast with the sportsmanlike young women of the community, Joan, +in her frills and wide hats and small, beaded, high-heeled slippers, +seemed to fill a long-felt want. Her rôle was by no means an +uninteresting one. Occasionally in the course of events she got almost, +if not quite, kissed; and she became expert in deflecting the course of +inconvenient emotion. + +"It's suggestion does it," she wrote to her friend Mr. Nikolai. "Given a +moon, fluffy ruffles, and the Kentucky-belle tradition--and they seem +helpless, poor dears!" + +But perhaps it was not entirely the power of suggestion that made her +success. Joan was enough of an artist to do whatever she did with a +certain finish. + +Her difficulty, however, in the heady game she played, was to +concentrate on the purpose in hand. At the end of two weeks, she began +to fancy a slight diminution of cordiality on the part of both Betty and +her mother, and she realized that her visit was growing longer than +seemed usual. Other guests came and went, remaining only a few days +before going on to the next engagement. Accustomed to the indeterminate +visits of the South, she had not thought to set any definite time for +her departure; but now she felt uncomfortably that the hour had come to +bring things to a climax. She gave herself one more week at Longmeadow. +Surely three weeks is a short enough time in which to provide oneself +with a future and a husband! + +She was by no means counting without her host. From the day of her +arrival Eduard had taken no pains to hide the fact that he considered +her his especial property. While his manner was still that of one who +would not willingly brush the bloom from off the peach, there had always +been in it a disturbing hint, a slight flattering suggestion, that +peaches are tempting even to the jaded appetite. Lately his air of +possession had become, to Joan's amusement, decidedly tinged with +jealousy. He viewed his more youthful rivals with no attempt at +equanimity. + +Joan was aware that people were beginning to discuss the affair, and to +watch her curiously. It put her on her mettle. She intended to satisfy +their curiosity very shortly; but--she wished the thing might be managed +without the necessity for so many tête-à-têtes. + +It was not that she did not like her future husband. On the contrary she +liked him so well as to find herself a little shy with him. She +preferred his attentions to take place against a background of society; +as for instance, at a dance, when his eye could be as significant as it +chose without alarming her; or at table, where under cover of the +general conversation, they managed some moments of real intimacy. + +There was much to be said, thought Joan, for the French method of +vigorously chaperoning young love up to the very threshold of matrimony. + +As it was, his foot seemed uncomfortably prone to rest on hers beneath +the table; and once when he stooped to recover a dropped fan, his lips +had brushed like a touch of delicate flame along the bare length of her +forearm--But these indications of what was to come the startled girl was +able to ignore as accidental. (She had decided, it will be recalled, to +be if necessary a trifle Fast.) + +At last she steeled herself firmly to the necessity for tête-à-têtes, +realizing that even so finished a performer as Mr. Desmond could not +well manage a genuine proposal during the intricacies of the tango, or +at dinner between the soup and the entrée. There were certain +accompaniments, she fancied, that made the idea of a proposal in public +impracticable--Joan's imagination was frequently as useful to her as +experience. + +She had managed to escape the perils of horseback riding by an inspired +expedient. Duplicity, she found, came easily with practice. + +"Straddle a horse? Oh, honey, I couldn't!" she had murmured at her most +Southern, when informed that there were no side-saddles in the +Longmeadow stables. + +"Why," protested Betty, "there's not a side-saddle to be had this side +of Kentucky, Jo--they're as extinct as the Dodo! And even if there were, +papa would never allow one on any of our horses. You haven't your habit +here, anyway. Do be sensible, dear. I'll let you ride the Rabbit!" + +Joan shook her head, regretfully but firmly. "If my father were to see a +lady of his family straddling a horse, in trousers," she said, "I think +he'd have a stroke!"--which was doubtless true. + +It was necessary, therefore, for Eduard's increasing desire for solitude +to take the form of canoeing, or driving in the dog-cart without a +groom; or preferably, strolling through a certain bit of near-by +woodland. + +Here he liked to fling himself at his handsome length on the moss at +Joan's feet, and read to her chosen bits out of the "Rubaiyat": a work +much in favor at the moment, which would appear to have been translated +by Mr. Fitzgerald for the express purpose of uttering Mr. Desmond's +sentiments. + +Joan murmured "Um-m-m!" and "How true!" and "Exquisite!" in the right +places; but she was not often listening to him. She was watching the +play of light and shade on his fine, waving hair; she was studying more +keenly than she knew the chiseled features, bearing those slight marks +of manly dissipation which are for some reason never wholly displeasing +to the young feminine eye; she was noticing the smallness of his hands, +the really beautiful cut and quality of his clothes. + +What sort of person was he under the agreeable surface, this chosen +husband of hers? + +An artist, people had called him: but Art in his case seemed not the +exacting mistress she had fancied it. Or perhaps the artistic +temperament required long periods of recuperative leisure.... She had +decided that it was wiser not to fall in love, at least till after +marriage: but she did choose that her husband should be the sort of +person it was possible to fall in love with; well-bred, fastidious, +cultivated, thoroughly a man of the world. All these Eduard Desmond was, +and more. He had a real and unaffected taste for music, books, +nature--for what Joan called to herself "the real things." It argued +well for future companionship. + +There was, to be sure, the disability of what she thought of vaguely as +his "habits." But there had been no sign of them in the two weeks she +had lived in the same house with him; and even if he had not as yet +completely overcome them, there was no reason why he should not do so +later, with a watchful wife to help him. On the whole their chances for +happiness together seemed quite as good as those of most people she +knew, thought Joan, with unconscious cynicism. + +The material side of the arrangement did not occur to her. For all her +calm calculations, Joan was not mercenary. All she asked was a place of +her own in the world, a sense of permanence; she longed quite wistfully +for a background that "stayed put." Romance was a thing she felt she +could do without forever, in return for independence from her +step-mother, and perhaps a little home of her own with a garden to it. +She believed that to any man who would provide these few essentials she +could be a faithful and a loyal wife. + +What would he expect of her in return? Would she have to go on all her +life being Southern and winsome and alluring? Would he prefer her, after +the honeymoon, say, to go in heavily for sports, like the women of his +set? Or might she presently venture to be just herself again--just Joan, +whatever that might be! The gayest of rôles becomes a trifle wearing for +everyday use. + +She sighed; and looking up from the Rubaiyat, he caught her eyes fixed +upon him, wide and speculative. + +"What is the little girl thinking of?" he asked tenderly. + +She answered at once, with a return of her gay daring, "You--of course!" + +But under his intensifying gaze her own dropped, and he went on reading; +in a voice that shook, however. + +"Now for it!" said Joan suddenly to herself. She dropped her hand +negligently on the leaves, close to his. + +She resisted the temptation to jerk it back as soon as she was aware of +its contact with another. Very slight the contact was, no more than the +touch of a leaf. She pretended not to notice it; but the blood sang in +her ears, her cheeks burned--she wished suddenly that he would take her +hand, if he was going to; hold it tight.... + +Heavens! What was happening to her? She _wanted_ the touch of his hand; +she liked it! Did she care for him, then? Was this being in +love--already? + +"Joan," he whispered. "Look at me!" + +The spell was broken. She jumped to her feet. "Come, we must be getting +back," she said hurriedly. "It is late." + +"Ah, but how cold you are!" + +"Yes, I am, a little," she said innocently. "These woods are damp." + +But all the way home, beneath her relief, lingered a sense of annoyance, +of disappointment. + +"What a prig I am," she thought disgustedly. "It would be all over now +if I'd only--let him!" + +That night she wrote at unusual length to Mr. Nikolai. It was almost +like writing to herself; and Joan frequently felt the need of seeing +what she was about set down in black and white, for greater clarity. + +She had not meant to tell Mr. Nikolai of her imminent engagement till +the thing was _fait accompli_; but she knew that everything would be +settled by the time her letter reached him. She wanted to be reassured +about her odd and unexpected emotion during the contact of her hand with +Eduard Desmond's. Was it so, then, that people fell in love, just +suddenly without any warning? And had the mind nothing to do with it +whatever? + +For mentally she was not altogether pleased with herself. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +The idea that Betty and her mother were eyeing her somewhat askance +troubled Joan not a little. In her heart of hearts she preferred women +to men, and believed their friendship more of a compliment. She would +have liked to make a friend of Mrs. Desmond, had there been time, +envying Betty's camaraderie with her mother; although Mrs. Desmond +presented a golfing, bridge-playing, sporting type of motherhood quite +new to her experience. + +There was a peculiar intimacy and freedom among all this group of +people, who seemed to spend most of the year together either in +Philadelphia or Aiken or Ormond or these long-established country-places +surrounding the Longmeadow Hunt Club. It was like a curiously ramified +family, in which husbands and wives seemed to have changed partners +rather frequently, and were still in process of changing. It was Joan's +first glimpse of a society in which married women hold the center of the +stage rather than young girls, and she was just a little shocked by it. + +There appeared to be no age limit here. It was not so much that these +women concealed their age, after the rather obvious fashion of Effie +May, as that they simply ignored it. Even Mrs. Desmond, dignified and +well-bred though she was, had a devoted attendant or two, spoken of +casually by Betty as "mamma's flames," and during Joan's visit at least +Mr. Desmond remained merely an abstraction. Conjugal affection was +distinctly not the fashion in the Desmond circle. + +But this casualness of relations did not extend to the young girls. They +had no such freedom as Joan was accustomed to in the South. Betty, at +eighteen, was as carefully guarded as if she were still a child. She was +not permitted to go into the city without a maid or an older woman; she +neither drove or canoed alone with men, nor "sat out" with them at +dances. And it did not occur to her to protest. + +"That sort of thing isn't good form," she explained once to Joan. "For +us, at least--Of course with Southern girls it's different." + +But Joan began to suspect that even Southern girls were expected to hold +in regard this one fetish they had elected to worship, Good Form; and +that according to this standard she had already been condemned. + +At first the younger women had made some effort to include her in their +various activities, golf, bridge, tennis. But latterly they had left her +alone, not severely but tolerantly, as one dedicated to other pursuits. + +"Miss Darcy? Oh, she's from the South, you know--awfully busy with the +men," she overheard one of them explain to a newcomer; and she had +resented the remark keenly, not only for herself, but for the women of +her adopted home, who at least are rarely "busy with the men" after +marriage. + +The person who made this remark was a Mrs. Rossiter, a pretty, boyish +creature, already divorced and remarried at thirty, and bearing her +present conjugality rather lightly. She was on terms of great intimacy +with the Desmond family, Eduard included; and Joan fancied that she +might have been one of the "widows" mentioned by Betty as her uncle's +chosen companions. + +But if it had been so, her day was done. Eduard had palpably no eyes for +her now, and Joan could afford the generosity of admiring Mrs. Rossiter. +She was so natural and frank, and so royally indifferent to others' +opinion. Joan, who had a fatal propensity for acting as the people about +her expected her to act, envied her this assurance, and wished that she +could make friends with her. + +The truth was that the girl, despite her success, felt utterly lonely. +She saw very little of Betty. Mrs. Desmond was an experienced hostess +who made no attempt to regulate the comings and goings of her guests, +and the girls made separate engagements. Even bedtime confidences had +ceased, owing to the fact that when Joan came up to her room, Betty was +usually asleep. + +But on the night of her illuminating afternoon in the woods with Eduard, +Betty appeared to be waiting up for her. She came yawning into Joan's +room to watch her friend undress, and established herself sleepily on +the foot of the bed. + +"What a pity you can't wear your hair down all the time, Jo! Men adore +hair, don't they? And yours has a regular patina on it, like old +bronze." + +"Not greenish, I hope," laughed Joan. + +"No--sort of orangish. Dark, with an orange lining." + +"Betty! It sounds horrible!" + +"Well, you know very well it isn't.--May Rossiter thinks you are awfully +clever to wear it that simple way, too, so straight and plain, when the +rest of us stick out like mops. She says you're awfully clever about +lots of things--too smart for the likes of us." + +"Does she?" Joan was a little startled and not quite pleased. She had +not intended to give the impression of cleverness. It was out of her +present rôle entirely. "I wonder what Mrs. Rossiter meant by that?" + +"Oh, men, of course," yawned Betty. "You see you've annexed a few of +hers, which naturally makes her peevish." + +"Have I?" murmured Joan. "Who, for instance?" + +"Well, Uncle Neddy, for one." + +"Oh! So she _was_ one of his flames, then?" + +Betty sat up. "You mean to say you didn't know it? One of them! _The_ +one, my child! Surely you remember about his broken heart?--the married +lady he was recovering from in Washington last year? Well, May's it. Of +course I'm not supposed to know, being an _ingénue_--but our Neddy was +frightfully gone on her, and she returned it, and the husband she had +then got jealous (rather a bounder he was, not one of us, you know), and +there was some sort of excitement, and she divorced him. Every one +thought to marry Uncle Ned, of course. But instead she upped and married +Mr. Rossiter! Joke on Neddy, wasn't it?" + +Joan's lip curled. "What a romantic love story! Why do you suppose she +married that old Mr. Rossiter?" + +Betty shrugged in a worldly-wise manner. "Awfully rich, my dear. And +Neddy isn't." + +"But they seem friendly enough still, she and Mr. Desmond?" + +"Oh, of course. Why not? It would be frightfully uncomfortable for the +rest of us if they glowered and didn't speak and all that, like +quarreling servants. And Uncle Neddy seems to be consoling himself!" She +twinkled at Joan. "That evens things up, you see. But,"--she suddenly +grew grave--"what do _you_ get out of all this, Joan? You couldn't +possibly _like_ seeing so much of Uncle Neddy! He's such a--softy. And +such a bore, too, with his art and poetry and stuff." + +"You mean," smiled Joan, "he's too mature for you, dear." + +"Too mature for you then, too! You're only a few months older." + +The other gave an unconscious sigh. "Oh, me--I'm different." + +Betty rounded upon her, "You certainly are! I've never seen such a +change in any one as a few months have made in you! Sometimes I hardly +recognize you for the Jo I used to know at school--so funny and larky, +and yet paying no more attention to the boys we used to make eyes at +over at the College than if they didn't exist." + +"College boys _don't_ exist," said Joan gravely. "They're like tadpoles, +just a transition state. And rather disgusting." + +"Not half as disgusting as the Uncle Neds! Look here, Joan," Betty +blurted out, "you're not--wanting to get married, are you?" + +Joan went as pale as the other was flushed. "No," she said in a low +voice, "I'm not!" + +Betty heaved a sigh of relief. "There! That's what I told 'em." (She did +not mention whom.) "The Ritters' guest was different. She _had_ to get +married, because she'd been visiting 'round for years, and people were +getting tired of it, and she couldn't pay for her clothes. But you, at +your age, with all the beaux you must have! Why, you wouldn't touch +Uncle Neddy with a ten-foot pole." + +Joan bit her lip. "Why not, Betty?" she asked, quietly. "What's wrong +with your uncle? You mean--because he drinks?" + +Betty looked uncomfortable. She was more of an _ingénue_ than she +thought, and found herself getting into deep water. + +"I don't know exactly," she confessed, "but there's _something_ wrong +with him. I don't think he drinks; not more than everybody does, anyway. +He's too fastidious--and I'd have noticed if he did. But there are other +ways of being dissipated--aren't there?" + +"I see!" said Joan, wisely; though she saw with some vagueness. Chorus +girls, she fancied, models, the artistic temperament, and all that.... +On the whole, she felt rather relieved. + +"That sort of thing ought to be easier to cure than drinking," she mused +aloud, "if a man were happily married." + +"_If!_" repeated Betty. "The question is, could it be done? Well, thank +Heaven, _we_ don't have to do it, anyway. I'd hate the job of keeper to +Uncle Ned's roving eye!... Ugh, let's not talk about it! Years before +you and I have to think of horrid things like marriage--Good night, you +bad old flirt," she murmured, kissing her friend. + +Joan was left with the subtle impression of having been warned. + +The impression was repeated the next morning when Mrs. Desmond, meeting +her on the stairs, remarked with a friendly pat of the arm in passing, +"I do wish you'd teach Betty something of the fine art of keeping them +guessing, Joan, It's quite wonderful the way you play them all off +against each other, and so good for them--particularly Ned! He's rather +spoiled, I'm afraid--used to monopolizing his favorites...." + +Evidently the Desmonds did not intend to take her affair with Eduard +seriously. For the first time it occurred to her that this might be +because they did not wish to. She was certainly not, to use Betty's +significant phrase, "one of them." + +The girl's head lifted haughtily. She was a Darcy of Kentucky. Surely +that was sufficient? + +Once in her childhood she had heard her father remark in a moment of +especial grandiloquence that Darcys were entitled to the society of +kings and queens; and Joan had never doubted the truth of the statement. +Something within assured her that she would feel perfectly at ease with +any kings or queens who chanced to cross her path. In fact the only +people with whom so far she had not felt at ease were snobs and +parvenues, under neither of which categories the Desmonds could be +placed. + +Now she wondered suddenly to what she and her father owed this +comfortable sense of lofty destiny. True, theirs was "an old Southern +family"; but living in a part of the world that seems entirely populated +by such families, this was no distinction. Darcys, she knew, had fought +and died for their country whenever occasion offered, but so had quite +simple people named Smith or Jones. She racked her brain to think of +anything else they might have done for their country, or even for +themselves. Genius had never made its appearance among them, nor wealth, +nor even beauty, to any noticeable extent. They were rich in one thing +only: self-esteem. + +Fortunately, however, Joan had her share of that; and upon further +reflection she decided that "Darcy" was at least as distinguished a name +as "Desmond." Doubtless their ancestors had been kings in Ireland +together. + +The question of her poverty occurred to her for a moment, only to be +dismissed as negligible. The Desmonds were too well-bred to be +mercenary. Eduard was not rich himself; and if, as Betty intimated, his +reputation was a trifle tarnished, he could not be too exacting in his +demands. He could not expect youth, and charm, and wit, and a dowry as +well! thought Joan complacently. No: Eduard would be getting quite as +much as he gave.... + +It was in rather a defiant mood that she appeared at dinner that night +in a blue chiffon frock which the observant Eduard had pronounced his +favorite; and though some people were expected afterwards for dancing, +she deliberately accepted his murmured suggestion that they row up the +river to see the last of the harvest moon. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +There had naturally been some discussion at the Convent as to the most +desirable setting for proposals, the consensus of opinion being in favor +of Miss Alcott's little water-scene between Amy and the faithless +Laurie. Laurie, the reader will remember, is rowing Amy about in the +romantic region of Chillon (still with regretful memories of Jo hovering +in the background, however), when she catches him eyeing her with an +expression which + + "makes her say hastily, merely for the sake of saying + something: + + "'You must be tired; rest a little and let me row,' etc. + + "'I'm not tired, but you may take an oar if you like,' etc. + + "Feeling that she had not mended matters much, Amy took the + offered third of a seat, shook her hair over her face" (Joan + personally suspected that Amy belonged also to the order of the + Brazen Hussies) "and accepted an oar. + + "'How well we pull together, don't we?' said Amy, who objected + to silence just then. + + "'So well that I wish we might always pull together in the same + boat. Will you, Amy?' very tenderly. + + "'Yes, Laurie,' very low. + + "Then they both stopped rowing, and unconsciously added a + pretty little tableau of human love and happiness to the + dissolving views reflected in the lake." + +This classic scene was not absent from Joan's mind as she seated herself +and her blue chiffon recklessly in the prow of Eduard's canoe; though +the details of stage-management troubled her somewhat. Suppose the +proposer chose to kneel at the feet of the proposee--since there was no +seat to share with her? And suppose the proposer lost his head (as might +properly be expected of him) and embraced the proposee madly--what was +to prevent so precarious a thing as a canoe from tipping over! It seemed +to call for great presence of mind on the part of the proposee. Joan +felt rather nervous. + +Mr. Desmond, however, let the opportunity pass. Perhaps he had not read +"Little Women." + +Amid talk so casual that it might as well have been silence, they +slipped along between the wide gray of earth and sky, afloat on a stream +of silver. They came presently to an overhanging willow, where he tied +the boat, and helped Joan ashore. He led her, with an air of one +performing a ceremony, up a slight rise of land topped by a great +beech-tree, whose widespread roots made a sort of armchair, after the +hospitable fashion of beech-trees. + +"Queen Joan on her throne, viewing her domain," he murmured. + +He had not brought her to this place before, and she realized that he +had been saving it for a special occasion. There was a view before her +of shadowy, dreaming country, with a hint of stars to come, and +sheep-bells tinkling in a distant field, and lights gleaming here and +there from half-hidden houses. + +Eduard began to murmur softly: + + "When the quiet-colored end of evening smiles, + Miles on miles + O'er our many-tinkling meadows where the sheep + Half asleep, + Wander homeward through the twilight, browse and crop + As they stop--" + +A sudden impatience seized Joan. How like him to arrange this setting, +to bring things carefully to a climax, and then--to spout Browning at +her! + +But she said, as he paused, "Beautiful! 'Love among the Ruins,' isn't +it?" + +"Yes--And I," he sighed, tapping himself on the chest, "I am the Ruins!" + +Despite the bombast of his tone, there was something in his sigh that +struck her as genuine. + +She said consolingly, "At least you're a well-preserved ruin, very +popular with tourists.... I wonder what makes you feel so particularly +ruinous to-night?" + +"The fact that you're so damnably young," he muttered. + +She made a little face at him. "I'm not, really. I'm one of those +persons who are born grown-up, you know. Besides, it's a fault that will +disappear in time." + +"Exactly! And before you know it, my dear. + + "'The nightingale that in the branches sang--ah, whence and + whither flown again, who knows!' + +"You oughtn't to be here with me," he said abruptly. "You ought to be +back there, playing with the little boys and girls." + +"But if the boys and girls bore me--?" + +"Do they?" he demanded. "Those chaps you dance and flirt with--?" + +Joan made him the present of a very special smile. "Perhaps that was to +make other people--jealous." + +"You darling!" he said under his breath; but still he did not touch her. + +"'Love among the Ruins' really isn't very beautiful," he said after a +moment, "or very natural, either--as my sister-in-law was very good to +point out to me only this morning!" + +Joan flushed. So Mrs. Desmond was taking not only a passive but an +active interest in her affairs! + +"Your sister-in-law is needlessly solicitous. I'm not a child like +Betty. I know exactly what I am doing." + +He leaned toward her. "Do you? Do you, I wonder? Joan! Look at me! _Do_ +you know what you are doing--to me?" + +The darkness left only the white outline of their faces visible to each +other. He struck a match, in order to see her better. + +For a moment she tried to meet his eyes. They frightened her even while +they drew her. The blood began to sing in her ears, as it had when he +touched her hand. She wanted him to take her in his arms, to hold +her--and at the same time she wanted to run away and hide. Their long +gaze seemed to let down some barrier within her, to loosen curious +impulses.... Why did he not take her, and have done with it? + +"No," he muttered, as if she had spoken, "Come!" + +Her body made a helpless movement toward him.... + +Then the match burnt his fingers and he dropped it. + +"I--I thought you said you had a present for me," she quavered, with a +little breathless laugh. She suspected what the present was, and she +wanted to get this queerly painful scene over. + +But the velvet case he drew out of his pocket was too large for a ring. +It contained a flexible chain of platinum for her wrist, set with jewels +which glittered in the dusk. + +"Oh!--oh, how lovely!" she exclaimed. Even Stefan Nikolai had never +given her anything as splendid as this. + +"May I put it on?" asked Desmond quietly. + +She held out her hand in delight; and suddenly he had seized it and +pushing her sleeve out of the way, was pressing his lips to her inner +arm above the elbow, kissing it hungrily, fiercely, as if he could never +have done. + +She gasped and shrank a little. Getting engaged was not at all as she +had pictured it. + +"Wh--what a funny place to kiss me," she heard herself quavering, "when +I've got a perfectly good mouth!" + +After that she ceased for once to analyze her sensations.... + +A gibbous harvest-moon was gazing down at them with its wry face when +the two awoke to the fact that the hour was late and cold, particularly +for a girl dressed airily in chiffon. Joan gazed ruefully at the wreck +of her prettiest gown, limp with dew and crushed beyond recognition. She +felt rather limp and crushed herself, though withal triumphant. One does +not get engaged every night, and it was fitting that certain sacrifices +honor the event. + +The lovers had little to say to each other, as the canoe slipped back +down the whispering river under that gibbous moon. For once Eduard found +no poetry to suit the occasion. Joan, busy with her tumbled hair, hoped +and even prayed that she might be able to slip into her room unobserved. +She hurried nervously out of the dark boathouse, despite entreaties to +wait, and was half way to the house before he caught up with her. + +"Oh, hurry!" she whispered. "They've all gone--every light in the house +is out! It must be after midnight. Ned, what if they've locked the +door?" + +"They haven't. My sister knows we're still out--trust her for that!" + +"But suppose she's waiting up for us?--Oh, Ned, whatever shall I say?" + +"You might tell her, Beautiful," he teased, "that I've had you up under +the beech-tree, kissing roses into your cheeks and stars into your +eyes!--though I think any one who saw you just now might suspect that +without being told." + +She turned suddenly and clung to him. Something of Joan's independence +had already slipped away from her, now that she had some one to cling +to. "Ned, she doesn't like me! How am I ever going to win her over?" + +"Kiss her," he suggested promptly. "Kiss her as you've been kissing me. +It couldn't fail!" + +"Don't tease!" She lifted serious, wide eyes to his, and he saw that +they were wet. "Don't you know that I shall never, never in all my life, +kiss anybody else as I have kissed you?" + +Touched, he drew her closer. She looked just then singularly childish +and confiding. "Dear little girl, that thought herself so grown-up!" he +whispered, his cheek on her tumbled hair. + +When she stirred in his arms he still held her. "What's the use of +hurrying now, Beautiful? The fat's in the fire--and who knows when we +shall have another night like this, all to ourselves?" + +But she would not stay. She felt, obscurely, that they had been engaged +enough for one evening. + +She found herself at last safe in her room--'safe' was the word in her +mind--sitting on the edge of her bed, staring down at her ruined finery +with eyes which did not see it. Her knees felt queerly weak under her, +her lips were bruised, her cheeks and throat and arms burned still with +remembered kisses--She said to herself, like the old woman with a shorn +petticoat, "Can this be I?" + +What had become of her powers of observation, her cool intelligence, her +impersonal decision that it was wiser not to love the man you marry lest +he be given power to hurt you? There was nothing impersonal left in her +feeling for Eduard Desmond! The change had come as suddenly as a summer +thunderstorm. At one moment she was waiting, nervous, a little afraid, +for the event that she had brought to pass. The next, he and she seemed +to have been thrown into a sort of vortex, where they clung to each +other madly, desperately, as if to escape destruction. And she had been +quite as frantic about it as the man.... + +She thought, dazedly, that there was a good deal she would be able to +tell the girls at the Convent now on the subject of proposals--yes, and +Miss Louisa M. Alcott, too! Except that school-girls and literary old +maids were not exactly the people with whom one would discuss such +phenomena-- + +They had fancied, she and Betty and the rest, that some sort of formula +was necessary to the occasion, a definite question asked and answered, a +more or less formal, "Will you, Amy?" and "Yes, Laurie." Foolish +innocents! She and Ned had not exchanged a sensible word from the moment +they found themselves in each other's arms. Yet the understanding +between them was unmistakable. They were completely engaged--almost, +Joan thought with a shiver, as good as married! + +This, then, was love. A very different thing from what she had expected! +A beautiful, rather terrible thing.... The touch of Puritan in the girl +made her wonder whether anything so beautiful and terrible could be +quite nice. + +She slipped to her knees; not to pray, but simply to remember her +mother. The vision of her mother always came better when she was on her +knees--perhaps because of the old-time association of prayers with +bedtime--and Joan felt a desperate need of her just then. She wanted to +be assured that her mother understood, and had been through it all +herself, and had come out of it--just her mother. She held out her +jeweled bracelet childishly in the dark, as if for somebody to see. She +knelt there tense, every nerve and fibre straining, whispering under her +breath, "Mamma, are you here? Do you know?" + +But the vision failed her. She had instead the warmth of a man's breath +on her closed eyes, the roughness of his cheek on her throat.... + +She dropped her head in her arms and began to sob. She was very happy. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +It was well into the middle of a fine blue and gold morning when Joan +awoke, to find her coffee cold on the tray beside her bed. She had slept +through even the entrance of the maid who called her; she who had +expected not to sleep at all! An engaged girl, with her lover +waiting--in the garden, perhaps, or down beside the river--their river! + +The happiness of the night before came to her with a rush, and with it +an enormous sense of relief. The thing was done, accomplished! + +She ran to the window and peeped out eagerly, hoping he might be +watching her window. But only the old gardener was in sight, pottering +about among the roses. She blew a kiss from her finger-tips--whether to +the gardener, the roses, or the sparkling water beyond she did not +know--and began hurriedly to dress. + +Singing under her breath, she tripped down the stairs. The big, sunny +house was very still. Joan, going from room to room, gazed about her +appreciatively. Hitherto the house, the garden, the wide, pleasant +countryside had all served merely as a background, of which she was +vaguely aware as actors are of a suitable setting for the play they +produce. Now she felt that she really had leisure to enjoy her +surroundings, which were usually very important to Joan. + +She paused to examine a hunting-print, lingered over a fine etching, +patted affectionately the soft, gay chintzes of the morning-room. What a +relief after such an artificial house as her step-mother's! Nothing here +in the least pretentious, no striving after periods, or artistry, or +even originality, but everything good, well-chosen, used: luxury in +abeyance to comfort; everywhere evidence of travel and culture, and the +long habit of these things. + +Joan drew a breath of satisfaction. Just such a home she hoped to make +for Eduard, though on a smaller scale, perhaps, and with the addition of +a little beauty; since it takes more than wealth to provide that. + +She thought to find him in the billiard-room, or perhaps in a certain +little vine-hung balcony where they sometimes met. But both were empty. + +"Where's everybody this fine morning, Molly!" she asked a housemaid she +met in the hall. + +"Gone over to play golf, like as usual, Miss--'cep'n Mr. Eduard," added +Molly, (the pantry having eyes of its own). "He took the first train to +town--no'm, I guess it was the second train. Anyway it was real early +for Mr. Eduard to be up." + +"Oh," said Joan, blankly. + +Then it occurred to her why he might have felt the sudden need of +running into town. Bracelets are all very well in their way, but they +are, after all, noncommittal. She glanced down at her ringless hands, +and laughed. + +The maid smiled, too, as if in sympathy. "That's an awful pretty +bracelet you got on, miss," she was emboldened to say. + +"I like it myself, Molly," she confessed, holding it off at arm's length +the better to admire it. + +She wondered how long it took to get into Philadelphia and back, if one +were in a hurry.... + +Presently some of the golfers came in, ravenous for luncheon. In a +sudden accession of shyness, Joan hid her bracelet in her pocket. She +surprised them by offering to go back with them later to the golf-links. + +"Perhaps I'll catch a golf-germ," she explained. + +"What, no engagement for this afternoon? Where's our Eduard?" murmured +Mrs. Rossiter, who was one of the party. + +But Joan had learned long since to meet impertinence with a noncommittal +smile. + +After an hour or so of polite attention to the game, however, her +interest flagged. She knew that when Eduard got home he would come to +look for her, and she had a sudden dread of their first meeting before +others, under the observant eyes of May Rossiter in particular. She made +an excuse of letters to write, and walked back through their favorite +woodland, on the chance of his meeting her there. Eduard had rather an +instinct for that sort of thing. + +But when she reached Longmeadow, there was no sign of him. Nor did he +appear that night at dinner. No comment whatever was made upon his +absence. + +Joan became uneasy. Surely it was very strange that he should leave her +for so long a time just now, without explanation! + +An explanation offered itself that drove the blood out of her +cheeks--His habits! What did Betty know about them? Men who drink do not +always choose the bosom of the family in which to indulge their +weakness. In the reaction of emotion upon an artistic temperament, +anything might be happening! + +The thought roused in Joan one of her finest traits: an immediate +response to any call upon her protection. That he had so soon failed her +was no reason for her to fail him. She must try to understand, and +wait.... + +People dropped in after dinner, among them as usual Mrs. Rossiter; and +Joan, chatting rather abstractedly with one of her admirers in a corner +of the porch, caught fragments of conversation from the room within, +between Mrs. Rossiter and her hostess. + +"So Ned's torn himself away at last?" + +"Yes, thank Heaven! The Arnolds have postponed their cruise three times, +waiting for him. Why people put up with his shilly-shallying, I'm sure I +don't know!" + +"Oh, Ned has his uses. They say Fanny Arnold.... But what do you suppose +the Darcy girl...." + +Their voices dropped lower, and Joan heard no more.... + +She felt for the moment absolutely numb. She was like a person who has +been shot, without having time to ascertain where. All the pride in her +gathered to meet this blow without flinching. People must not +suspect--they must not suspect. + +She went on chatting, laughing, jesting.... He had gone away for good! +Without a word to her, he had gone away. He had known last night that he +was going, and that he would not come back. She, Joan Darcy, had been +jilted. She, too proud to live on a stranger's bounty, had offered +herself, unasked, to a man who did not want her!... + +Somebody begged her to sing, and brought a guitar. Hers was a slight +voice, uncultivated, but with something about it, as about Joan, that +attracted attention. People listened to her. She had that curious +_élan_, that sense of being borne on some outside power, that comes to +certain natures from the response of an audience. + +Joan touched heights that evening. To some brains, suffering is an +incomparable stimulant. Even Betty, with the remembrance of certain wild +orgies at school, when quiet Joan Darcy had amazed nuns and girls alike +by a sudden transfiguration, had never gaged to the full her friend's +possibilities. She sang for them daringly whatever came into her head, +negro catches, rollicking Irish lilts, wicked little songs of the +streets and alleys. Under Betty's urgings, she exhibited a talent for +mimicry which had occasionally reduced the good Sisters almost to +apoplexy. + +She showed them her father during a political campaign, addressing his +constituency under the handicap of a cold in the head. One could see the +Major's urbane periods, his mellifluous hand, his tossing topknot--She +showed them the Mother Superior, called in to quell a dormitory riot, +endeavoring while dodging pillows to maintain proper religious +"detachment from place." As an encore she gave them Eduard Desmond, +conducting a sunset _à deux_, with assistance from the poets--a bit of +recklessness that brought shouts of joy from the audience, and produced +in Mrs. Rossiter's mocking eye something like respect. + +"Joie, how _dared_ you!" cried Betty, breathless with laughter, as she +went upstairs with her arm about her friend. "It was Uncle Neddy to his +very hands; that way he has of touching people inadvertently, as if it +were quite by accident. You ought to have seen May Rossiter's face!" + +"I did," said Joan grimly.--Something of the sustaining force had begun +to leave her, and all she asked of life for the moment was to be left +alone. + +But Betty was too delighted with her friend's triumph to be easily +quenched. "It was like old times!" she cried. "Dear old times at school, +when there weren't any men about to spoil things, and the nuns let go +and had a good time like anybody!... Nobody here'll ever think of you +again as just a flirt and a man-grabber! Why, do you know what that man +who came in with Mrs. Jameson said? (He's a clever person, a professor +or something.) He said to Mother, 'Mrs. Desmond, that girl's got a touch +of genius!'" + +"Genius for what--making believe? Much good it does me," said Joan +bitterly.... Would the other never go? + +Betty hugged her. "And to think we were afraid you'd take Uncle Neddy +seriously! Oh, if he could only have seen you!--Jo, _I_ know why you +were in such wild spirits to-night. I'm not going to ask any questions, +because Mother made me promise not to. But you can't deny there is a +sort of coincidence between the fact that you spent the evening up the +river with him, and that to-day he's gone!--now can you?" + +"No," said Joan, "I can't deny that there's--a sort of coincidence." + +"Good-by forever! Good-by-yi-yi forever,'" warbled Betty after Tosti, +somewhat infected by her friend's recent performances. "Fancy the +Irresistible coming another cropper, and at the hands of a mere infant +like you! I suppose I ought to be sorry for him, but I'm not. It'll +teach him to keep his hands off _my_ friends, anyway!" she exclaimed +vindictively. + +"I gather," murmured Joan with a pale smile, "that you did not +altogether fancy me as an aunt?" + +"Rather not! I prefer you 'as is.' Plenty of aunts in the world, and not +so many Joans." + +She went at last, leaving the heroine of the evening to a sleepless +night. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +Morning did not bring the word from Eduard Desmond that Joan told +herself must surely come; the explanation, the excuse, no matter how +bald, which she might go through the form of accepting. Nor did the day +following bring any message. + +On the third day, however, came a basket of candy, a superlative affair +of blue straw, tied with wide blue ribbons and quite realistic +forget-me-nots. Within was the expected communication: + + I never say the ugly word "good-by," if I can help it, + Beautiful. Better to keep intact the memory of our last evening + together. + + From my heart I thank you for what you have given me. Such + experiences do not come twice in a lifetime.--I have learned. + + And you, sweetest of them all, what have you learned? At least + to remember me, I hope! EDUARD. + +Joan read this over and over, incredulously--The cruelty of it, the +sheer, epicurean viciousness, appalled her. She said to herself, like +the man in Hedda Gabler, "But people don't do such things!" + +Evidently they did, and escaped unscathed. She clenched her hands +helplessly. Oh, to be able to tell her father! A rush of primitive +feeling came over her, almost of blood-lust. She wanted vengeance on the +man who had surfeited himself with her innocence, her youth, it seemed +to poor Joan her very soul--and had made amends by sending her a box of +candy! The candy seemed somehow a worse insult than the jewel he had +given her. It mocked her with its triviality. Bon-bons in return +for--what? + +With a groan she swept the offering off the table on to the floor; and +treading confections underfoot at every step, she fled across her room +to the shelter of her bed, where she flung herself face downward. + +WHY? WHY? was the despairing cry of her spirit. How had he dared to +treat her so lightly? What had she done? + +The answer was not far to seek. With a shudder she remembered her +careful study of the rôle she had chosen to play, her considered +coquetries and sophistications, even her dressing, the display of silken +ankles, of bared arm, her modest décolletage--all weapons she had +employed not quite in ignorance. Precocious instinct and the comments of +her step-mother had taught her much. She had deliberately, and for her +own ends, joined the order of the Brazen Hussies--With this result! + +Joan faced her lesson squarely. But she felt sick, degraded, literally +soiled. This was the sort of thing that happened to girls who "fell." + +She had, for all her reading, a quite hazy idea of what "falling" meant. +For a frantic moment (it must be remembered that Joan's education had +been conducted by religious ladies who paste decent tissue-paper skirts +over offending illustrations in the physiology books)--she struggled +with a nightmare horror that she had perhaps "fallen" herself, that such +a degradation of the spirit might even have physical results.... + +"No, no, _no_!" gasped Joan, "not when I hate him so! It's impossible!" + +For if, according to a rather touching convent theory, it is love alone +which calls children into being, surely hate must have the opposite +effect? + +Joan had not pursued this line of mental research to her usual lengths. +Certain things, it appeared, such as miracles and the power of prayer +and all phenomena embraced under the generic title of Love, were better +taken entirely on trust. + +With ashen cheeks and a heart thumping with terror, Joan put her hands +over her ears to shut out the sound of her own thoughts. It was the +first time in her life she had come face to face with the meaning of the +word "fear." And that the fear was childish, made it none the less real. +Nineteen, not ninety, is the age of tragedy. There are few suicides +among the old.... + +She did not hear a rap twice repeated, nor the opening of the door. +Somebody peeped in, saw the sobbing figure on the bed, the scattered +bon-bons, the crumpled note on the floor. Then came a louder knock. + +Joan sat up, and cried in a panic, "Don't come in!" + +But Mrs. Rossiter chose to misunderstand her. "Did you say come in?" she +inquired cheerfully. "I hope so, because nobody else seems to be at +home, and I'm pining for company." + +She paused as Joan sank back in despair, hiding her ravaged face in her +handkerchief. + +"What's the matter, dear? Headache?" she questioned kindly, adding with +a glance at the overturned basket, "Too much candy, perhaps?" + +"Yes," gulped Joan, fighting for self-control "Too much candy!" + +Mrs. Rossiter selected a _marron_ from the floor with care, wiped it +daintily, and began to eat. "This looks," she said, "like one of Ned +Desmond's offerings. He's such an artist about everything! Who but he +would have thought of selecting a basket to match your eyes?" + +Joan lay still, and hated her. She thought of several biting remarks she +might make to this woman who had come to gloat over her; but +unfortunately she could not yet trust her voice to utter them. + +"So you sent him away after all?" continued the voice smilingly, "Led +him on, and made a fool out of our poor dear Ned, and then sent him +about his business? Naughty Joan!" + +Something impelled the girl to utter frankness. She was done with +acting. "I didn't, and you know I didn't," she gulped. "I accepted him. +I was engaged to him!" + +"Engaged?" + +"Yes!--and then the next day he was gone." + +"Stole away," murmured Mrs. Rossiter amusedly. "That was rather crude of +Eduard. He doesn't usually run to such lengths.... You mean he actually +in so many words invited you to _marry_ him?" + +Joan covered her eyes again. "I suppose not," she said in a small, +miserable voice. "No, he didn't. But he--he kissed me as if we were +engaged, and I kissed him back!" + +"Oh," murmured the other. "You find engaged kisses so very different, +then, from the other kind?" + +Joan cried indignantly, "I don't know anything about the other kind! +I've never kissed a man before in my life." + +"No? 'More kissed against than kissing,' perhaps?" + +The girl lifted her chin as haughtily as it is possible to lift a chin +that is quivering with held-in sobs. "I have never been kissed +either--except on the hand or the ear or something, which doesn't +count." + +"No, that hardly counts," agreed her inquisitor, looking at the girl +quite curiously. "See here," she asked in another tone, "how old are +you, Miss Darcy?" + +"Nineteen." + +"Hmmn! Younger than I thought. Still, a Southern girl--" + +"Can be just as decent as any other kind!" cried angry Joan. "Anyway, +I'm only part a Southern girl. But I know! Lots of them are just as nice +about such things as Betty, for instance." + +"Nice, of course," agreed Mrs. Rossiter. "And tremendously attractive. +But just for that reason a little more--well, experienced, don't you +think? We get our experience later, perhaps.... And you seemed +particularly well-seasoned, able to take care of yourself, playing them +off against each other like a little veteran. I've told Jane Desmond so +more than once. She wanted to warn you--but I told her you knew the +ropes." + +"I didn't," said Joan tremulously, "Warn me of what?" + +"Why, of Ned. She was afraid you might really land him. The wariest of +fish takes the hook at last!" + +Joan winced at the remark, but she was too busy getting to the bottom of +things to resent it. + +"Why did she object to my marrying him?" + +Mrs. Rossiter stared. "Good Lord! Well, because she's got a girl of her +own, for one thing. Because she's married to a Desmond herself, for +another. She knows the breed, poor Jane!" + +Light was breaking on Joan. "You mean--she objected for _my_ sake?" + +"Of course!" said Mrs. Rossiter rather impatiently. "Ned's all right as +a brother-in-law, useful to have about, to run errands, etc. One has to +have a man in the house, and she's really rather fond of him. But to +marry him off to a fresh young girl like you!--No, no, Jane's not that +sort." + +"Oh," said Joan faintly. She began to realize that instead of +antagonism, it had been friendliness that watched her, motherly, anxious +kindness, which she had been too blind to understand. + +"Oh, Mrs. Rossiter," she cried tremulously, "I've been horrid!" + +"Bless you, no. It's Ned who was horrid, I suspect--men are. Votes for +Women, eh? Be glad you've found it out in time.... But you fooled me, +you know; and to do Ned justice, I think you fooled him. He's not +altogether a cad. I've never known him try cradle-snatching before. He +usually prefers to play the game with people who understand, married +women or widdy-ladies of mature years, or--well, the professional +charmer." + +"Ugh! You speak as if there'd been dozens of us!" + +"So there have. Dozens! And there are dozens of him, too. Amorists, you +know, dilettantes, non-eligibles--the bane of all good chaperones. +'Gather the rosebuds while ye may' effect. They make quite a business of +it, I assure you; or rather an art. 'The secret of enjoyment is to know +the exact moment when one has attained the maximum--and to stop there'! +Haven't you heard him say it?" She laughed rather mirthlessly, and Joan +did not join her. + +After a moment the older woman left the arm of the chair where she had +been perched boyishly, with swinging leg, nibbling her _marron_. She +walked about the room, and then came and sat beside Joan on the bed. Her +voice had become rather shy. + +"Joan," she asked, "did you--care, my dear?" + +The girl turned her burning face away. "I don't know," she whispered. +"How does one know?--I thought about him all the time, and sometimes I +didn't want him at all, and sometimes--I did.--And now I wish my father +would _kill_ him!" + +The other shook her head. "That's not it, then. You'd know! Even at the +worst," she said quietly, "if my father had killed him, I should have +wanted--to kill my father." + +Joan forgot herself in sheer astonishment. "You!" she cried. "But I +thought it was you who declined to marry him, even after you'd got a +divorce to do it?" + +Mrs. Rossiter smiled queerly. + +"Did Ned tell you that?" + +Joan, much embarrassed, explained the Convent impression of Mr. Desmond +and his broken heart. + +The other laughed. "So that's the idea he has allowed to get abroad? +Nice of him. Ned always was a gentleman--and I suppose it does put him +in a better light, too--But unfortunately the facts of the case are +otherwise. I did get a divorce to marry him--not that he suggested it, +oh, dear, no! That would have been too crude. It simply seemed to me the +honest thing to do, and my husband agreed with me--So I took up my +residence in Dakota. And when I came back, quite free and marriageable, +Eduard happened to be in Brittany, painting." + +"And then?--" prompted Joan, round-eyed at this little glimpse behind +the scenes. + +"That's all. There wasn't any 'then.' Eduard remained in Brittany, +painting. The episode was over, you see. Presently I married Rossiter. +One couldn't pine away like a love-lorn housemaid!" + +"Don't laugh," said Joan hoarsely. "It's too awful!" Her hand gripped +the other's. "Oh, how can you bear to _speak_ to him?" + +May Rossiter shrugged. "You don't suppose it lasts, you funny innocent? +Besides, though he did cost me a few illusions and some suffering and a +reputation (what's a reputation among friends?), I owe Ned Desmond one +very good turn. Jim Rossiter's the best husband of my acquaintance." + +She leaned over swiftly and kissed Joan on the cheek. + +"So you see you're not the only silly little simpleton who learns her +ropes by tripping on them. Makes you feel better, doesn't it? Of course! +That's why I told you.... Look here, what's the use of wasting all this +perfectly good candy? Jane's floors are above suspicion. Let's pick it +up and take it downstairs and make a Roman holiday, shall we?" + +Between them, with some laughter and a very real sense of comradeship, +they restored Eduard's peace-offering to its basket. Then Joan +remembered her bracelet. + +"What shall I do with it?" she asked, aghast. "If I return it now, it +will look--offended, as if I had taken him seriously!" + +"Which would never do," Mrs. Rossiter was quick to agree. She examined +the bracelet with interest. "Sapphires, emeralds, nice little +diamonds--dear, dear! And a Chartier setting. Ned must have had it +rather badly. He never gave _me_ anything so compromising! Keep it, of +course," she advised cynically. "It's a nice bit of jewelry, and you may +as well have something decent for a souvenir." + +But Joan's hardihood was not equal to that. + +"Well, then"--the other's eye sparkled with sudden malice--"why not give +it to me for a parting present! Splendid! Fancy his expression when he +recognizes his _gage d'amour_ glittering on my wrist, of all wrists in +the world! And, believe me, he shall recognize it--What ho! Votes for +Women!" + +She laughed until she cried. + + * * * * * + +When Joan said good-by to Longmeadow some days later--not so soon as to +give her departure the appearance of flight--she left trailing clouds of +glory. The rumor had got about, thanks perhaps to Mrs. Rossiter, that +the redoubtable Eduard had met his Waterloo at the hands of the Kentucky +girl, which seemed not to detract from her popularity among Eduard's +friends, male or female. She became quite legendary in the countryside. + +Betty, fully restored to her earlier allegiance, parted from her with +tears, and Mrs. Desmond made her promise to visit them soon again. + +But it was a promise Joan knew she would not have the courage to keep. +And when she had waved her last gay farewell, and thrown her last kiss +impartially out of the window to the group who had come into town to see +her off, she settled back in the train which had brought her with such +high hopes to her first failure, and said aloud, "Thank goodness that's +over!" + +"Pardon _me_--did you speak?" murmured a young man in the seat in front +of her, turning round with a start; a wide-eared young man whom Joan +recognized. + +"Goodness!" she said in some dismay. "You seem to dog my footsteps, Mr. +Blair. There's no escaping you!" + +"Looks that way, don't it?" he grinned apologetically. "I've been in +Philadelphia on a big order--Landed it, too!" he added in irrepressible +triumph. + +"Which is more than I did," sighed Joan; and guessing from her +expression that a jest was intended, Mr. Blair laughed long and loudly. +He was always very keen on the scent of a jest. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +It was owing to this fortuitous train journey that one night, some weeks +later, Mr. Archibald Blair found himself moving in what he considered +very high society indeed. In the years when he had peddled papers on the +street corners, or padded around with them on thin and sturdy legs of a +Sabbath dawn, so that the world might have its news with its coffee and +griddle-cakes for breakfast, Archie had amused himself and added to his +mastery of his native tongue by reading an occasional account of a Galt +House Ball. + + "Social Event of the Season Magnificent Affair Given Last + Evening To Mark The Début into Society of" etc., etc. + +And here he was himself, part and parcel of a Galt House Ball! It was +quite amazing. + +Archibald Blair was no snob; but to him, as to many another of the +world's workers, "Society" represented a world apart, a sort of +fairyland in which creatures of an order far superior to ordinary humans +lived and moved and had their lovely being--feminine creatures, of +course. About the male of the species he had no illusions. They were +merely the same Charlies, Toms, and Georges one knew down town, and with +whom one had played baseball or marbles or shinny, transformed by glad +rags (the language is Archie's) into temporary black-tailed butterflies. +They did not fool him for a moment. When he caught a familiar and +surprised eye belonging to one of them, which he did more than once, he +grinned and winked. In return, the owner of the eye called out, "Why, +hello, Arch!" or, "Glad to see you, Blair!" in very friendly fashion, +for Archibald was a popular youth among his acquaintance. + +But they did not introduce him to their girls. + +Archie was not chagrined. On the rare occasions when he took Miss Emma +from the cashier's desk, or Miss Grace, the prettiest office +stenographer, to a dance-hall, he was careful himself about whom he +introduced to them. Fellows were often well enough with fellows, when +they wouldn't do for one's lady-friends. Girls had to be choosy. (Again +the language is Archibald's.) + +He stood alone on the edge of the whirling throng with a pleased, +unconscious smile on his face, watching for the girl he had come to see, +wondering if it would be all right if he asked her to dance. In the +society he had hitherto frequented--or rather sampled, and found not +altogether satisfactory--a fellow danced only with the girl he had taken +with him, or perhaps, if it had been arranged beforehand, with the +partner of some friend, who in turn danced with his partner. Here things +seemed to be done differently. A line of young men hovered on the edge +of the dancers, and every now and then one would swoop in amongst them +and seize the lady of his choice away from her partner seemingly by main +force, a sort of modern Rape of the Sabines. + +"Gee!" said Archibald to himself, watching. "Gee! But that takes a +nerve." + +However, life on the whole does take a nerve, as he had long since +discovered. + +He had, he supposed, as good a right to try it as the rest. The engraved +card of invitation was in his pocket--nobody had taken it from him at +the door. His broadcloth tails were as long and as neatly fitting as +anybody's--the invitation having arrived at a fortunate time when the +order he had landed in Philadelphia made it possible to buy himself a +hitherto unnecessary dress suit. It is true that he had used up almost a +box of lawn ties before he could get the proper touch to his bow, and +even now the result should have proved indubitably that he was not a +necktie drummer. He made a mental note to ask his friend Jakie +Florsheimer of the Gents' Furnishing at Morehouse's what he could do to +keep the blamed thing from riding up on him. Still, his final view of +himself in the washstand mirror had not been discouraging. + +"Some boy," he had murmured to himself, in the absence of a less partial +critic. + +So now he tensed the muscles of his jaw, and waited his chance, +nervously. + +How wonderful they were, these slim, delicate creatures whirling by, +with their white arms and backs, their tiny feet slippered in silver and +gold, their soft laughter, their eager, luring eyes smiling over the +shoulders of the fortunate youths who embraced them! Archibald grew +quite dizzy with the scene, and stood at gaze as certain dazzled +mariners may have gazed upon the Lorelei, to their undoing. + +"This is the life!" he said to himself, decidedly. There was not a pay +dance-hall in town that could touch it. + +Other connoisseurs more experienced than Archibald Blair have looked +with delight upon a Galt House Ball--and will look no more, alas! Along +the broad corridor behind the ballroom picked experts were wont to +congregate early in every season to inspect Louisville's latest +contribution to the beauty of the race, comparing points and +conformation, class, speed, and endurance, as knowingly as such things +are later discussed at Churchill Downs. Indeed, Louisville may be said +to be, in some matters, a city of experts. The youth who sells you your +cigar, the newsie who provides you with an evening edition, should +without a moment's hesitation be able to tell you the name of two things +on demand: the Derby winner and the season's beauty. + +So Archibald was in a measure prepared for what he saw. Anticipations of +it had kept him awake at night. His trouble was in the midst of so much +loveliness to fix his ravished attention upon the finding of one face. + +When he found it at last, however, his eye did not again wander. He was +a young man whose head rarely contained more than one idea at a time--a +fact which perhaps accounted for his growing success in the selling end +of the business. + +He let her pass the first time out of sheer pleasure of the sight of her +in motion. Joan was wearing, as she usually wore nowadays, an odd shade +of blue, very much the color of the orchids at her waist. In the hand on +her partner's arm she carried another bouquet, of violets; and the +second time she passed she had exchanged this for a third, of pink +roses. From which it may be gathered that Louisville was at last waking +up to the attractions of our heroine. + +Archibald wished suddenly that he had sent her a bouquet himself, but +decided that she might have thought it "fresh." + +"Unless I was to send it just 'From a Friend'?" he thought, his eye +brightening. + +She had changed partners on each appearance, as well as bouquets; and +the third time she was dancing with a portly gentleman who one-stepped +so majestically, so benignly, that their passage down the room was a +sort of royal progress. + +"Why, the gay old guy!" thought Archibald, surprised; and decided that +this was the moment for his grand coup. Girls like that should not have +to dance with parties old enough to know better. + +He stepped up to the couple as he had seen others do, and slapped Major +Darcy on the back, remarking with the excessive nonchalance which is the +result of nervousness, "So long, old top! Back to the tall timbers for +you." + +The Major turned and stared, really uncertain as to whether it could be +himself who was thus addressed. + +"It's Mr. Blair, Dad," explained Joan hurriedly, "who was so nice to me +on the train; don't you remember?" + +The Major still stared. But innate hospitality triumphed: and perhaps +there was something disarming, too, in the wide-apart front teeth of Mr. +Blair, which, as Joan had previously observed, gave him an oddly +innocent expression. + +"Very well, young top!" he murmured courteously, "I surrender my +daughter to your mercies." + +The two danced away, Blair holding his prize as if he did not know quite +what to do with her now that he had got her. + +"For goodness' sake, take _hold_ of me!" she instructed after a moment. +"I feel as if I were about to float out of your grasp. I won't break, +you know!" + +Archie obediently held her tighter, murmuring, "Pardon _me_!" + +He danced surprisingly well, as if he were really listening to the +music, Joan thought. She did not trouble to talk to him, therefore. + +"So that was your father," he said after a long and anxious silence. +"Why, he's a peach, hopping around like that at his age!" + +"Rather more of a pear, don't you think? As to figure?" suggested Joan; +for the Major's tendency to _embonpoint_ had increased remarkably since +his marriage. + +Blair threw back his head and gently roared. He was one of the people +who always made Joan feel herself a wit of the first water. + +Yet she was a little sorry he had come to-night. She had sent him the +card to her début ball by way of repaying an obligation. He had been +very thoughtful on the train about getting her fruit and papers--almost +too thoughtful; and had insisted, somewhat to Joan's embarrassment, on +paying for the two meals they had taken together in the dining-car. She +did not care to remain in debt to a stranger; hence the invitation. But +she had not, somehow, expected him to take advantage of it. + +Since he was here, however, she must do what she could for him. She knew +what it was to be a stranger in a gay throng. + +"Do you know any girls?" she asked. + +"Not to speak to--though I've seen some of the young ladies on the +street, of course. This is the first time I've ever been out in +Society," he explained simply. + +"Yes? I'm a débutante too, you know. And how do you like Society, so +far?" + +"Fine, fine!" he told her. "Better even than I thought it was. Makes the +movie pictures of it look sort of silly." + +"You ought to go to the Horse Show next week if you find this sort of +thing interesting. I hear it is to be something splendiferous!" + +"I will," he assured her, earnestly. + +"And now I'd better introduce you to some other people." She shook her +head smilingly at a youth who was about to touch him on the shoulder. +After all, one owes something to the duties of hospitality. "Though +really you don't have to _meet_ girls at a thing like this before you +ask them to dance. I don't know the names of half the men I dance with." + +"You don't?" he repeated incredulously, wondering what Miss Emma or Miss +Grace would think of that! He decided not to tell them. "I reckon I'd +rather be introduced first though, if you don't mind," he +murmured--"I--I wouldn't know just what to call 'em." + +Laughing, she stopped with the music, and on an impulse of sheer +mischief guided him toward the exclusive young person who had once made +her unhappy at the Country Club, one Miss Emily Carmichael. She was not +too exclusive, it appeared, to come to the Darcy ball; which she did not +seem to be thoroughly enjoying, however. + +"Ask her to dance--she needs it," murmured Joan _sotto voce_ as they +approached. + +"Sure thing," replied Archibald; and as soon as Joan had pronounced the +formula: "Miss Carmichael, Mr. Blair," he said promptly, "Be pleased to +have the pleasure of the next turn, Miss Carmichael." + +Joan went off with another partner, chuckling. She felt that scores were +even. + +Blair's face fell at this desertion. "Oh, but say," he called after her, +"can't I dance with you any more?" + +"Whenever you like! Just come and tap my partner and carry me off as you +did before. But," she added with a parting twinkle, "I don't believe I'd +call him 'old top' again!" + +Archibald flushed and understood. "All right," he said meekly. "I'll +just call him 'Say,' instead." + +He tapped her partner with some frequency after that, though not often +enough to be annoying; and Joan also noticed amusedly that he danced a +great deal with Miss Carmichael, who seemed quite willing. Exclusiveness +was evidently in abeyance at a ball. + +Sometimes when they passed each other she called out pleasantly, "Having +a good time, débutant?" and he answered in the vernacular of the moment, +"Fine and dandy!" + +She said, during one of their brief turns together, "You seem to be +getting on beautifully with that girl I introduced you to." + +"Who? Miss Carmichael? She's all to the mustard, isn't she! Asked me to +come and eat supper with her to-night." + +"She did?" exclaimed Joan, surprised. + +"Yes. You see I know her brother--put on gloves with him sometimes at +the Y. M. C. A. And it seems he's told her about me," explained Archie. + +"Oh!" Joan looked with new interest at his broad shoulders, his +straight, supple back. She understood suddenly the lift and spring and +untiring ease of his dancing, which was not grace exactly, but something +just as good. He was an athlete. She began to feel quite pleased with +her protégé. With a little pruning as to speech and general behavior, he +would make a rather presentable ballroom adjunct. His manner with women +was really nice. + +One other besides Joan watched Archie's progress with interest. At the +door of the dressing-room Ellen Neal, in her Sunday costume of +claret-colored serge with collar and cuffs of homemade Battenberg lace, +gazed proudly out upon the scene of her nurseling's triumphs, having +been unable to resist Mrs. Darcy's invitation to assist on so memorable +an occasion. She had removed countless evening wraps and carriage +slippers, assisted deftly, albeit with prim lips, at the powdering of +countless backs and bosoms, and now followed with adoring eyes a certain +slim blue figure that appeared and disappeared among the dancers. + +"Land," she thought. "If her mama could only see her now! The swellest +among the swell! And with a dress on her little back that cost that +woman a hundred dollars, if it cost a cent. She's got as many partners +as any of 'em--and why wouldn't she, then, I'd like to know?" + +Archibald had promised to look her up during the evening, but boylike +had forgotten the old friend in quest of the new. She forgave him for +it, though she would have liked very much to exchange impressions with +somebody. Her pride was bursting for utterance. + +Presently he came and stood quite near her, with only the width of the +corridor between them. His back was turned as he stood looking out over +the ballroom floor. + +"Sst" called Ellen. "Psst! Mr. Archie!" She dared not leave her post for +fear people would come for wraps or powder, and find only a colored +woman to wait on them, which would never do. (Ellen continued to regard +the colored race as a cross between the monkey and the magpie, with +leanings toward the magpie.) + +"Psst! Hey there!" she called. + +But Archie's mind was far away from Ellen Neal, and he did not hear her. +He was anathematizing Jakie Florsheimer of the Gents' Furnishings at the +moment for not having suggested white kid gloves to him. More than once +his clumsy bare hand, struggle against it as he might, had come in +contact with the delicate bare shoulder of one of his partners; and +Archibald felt that if such a catastrophe should occur when he was +dancing with Miss Darcy, the earth might just as well open and engulf +him permanently. She would never forgive him--and indeed why should she? +A man ought to have known by instinct about those reverential gloves. + +So he stood frowning out upon the ballroom, heedless of Ellen's hisses; +and in this way the old woman happened to be the unnoted witness of a +rather curious scene. + +Mrs. Darcy came tripping down the corridor alone, for the moment, having +been out to inspect preparations for supper. She did not believe in +leaving so important a matter as supper entirely to the hands of paid +assistants, no matter how well paid. She was resplendent in rose brocade +and spangles, her small plump feet encased in cloth-of-gold, a little +fishtail train of cloth-of-gold whisking behind her. Her hair positively +glittered, it was so golden, and her face was overspread with a rosy +bloom that always intrigued her step-daughter because of its unnatural +evenness, as if she had not simply rouged, but dipped her face in a +permanent elixir of youth that outdid youth itself. Joan had never +caught her with her face bare, as it were, even at the most unlikely +hours. + +Mrs. Darcy paused at sight of a young man standing by himself, gazing +out with a wistful frown at the gaiety before him; and her hospitable +heart smote her. She tapped his arm with her fan. + +"Kind o' lonesome?" she said. "Come on in and dance with me." + +He turned with a start. His eyes took her in from top to toe, and +suddenly narrowed. "No, thanks," he said curtly. "What are _you_ doing +here, anyway?" + +Effie May drew back. She looked, as Ellen expressed it to herself, +"flabbergasted." + +"Why! Who do you think I am?" + +He continued to stare at her with those narrowed, steady eyes. + +"I don't know, and I don't care. It's easy enough to see _what_ you are! +You'd better go, hadn't you?" suggested Archibald grimly. "This is a +private affair. Invitation only." + +By this time the startled lady had recovered her poise. "You're making a +mistake, young man," she replied quietly, "This happens to be _my_ +private affair. I am Mrs. Darcy." + +It was his turn to be flabbergasted. + +"_Her mother?_" + +"Miss Darcy's step-mother," said Effie May, with some dignity. + +She continued to meet his gaze, which did not lower, though he had gone +quite pale. + +"The joke's on me," he muttered at last. "It's I who'd better go, I +guess. Pardon _me_!" + +She inclined her head without speaking. + +He still continued to look at her, as if puzzled. "My mistake," he said +again. "If your husband wants me at any time, my name is Blair, Mrs. +Darcy--Archibald Blair." + +"He won't want you," said Effie May. "Good night." + +Ellen Neal, aghast, watched him turn on his heel and leave. + +"Land!" she said to herself. "Land sakes! He's gone and done for himself +now, the young idjit!" + +When she turned again, she saw Mrs. Darcy refreshing herself with a +glass of "Dick Fizz" at the punch bowl. She seemed to need it. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +But Effie May's amiability was proof even against this trying episode. +She said to Joan, the day after the ball, when they were talking things +over in unusual intimacy, "By the way, who's the young fellow that +danced so much with you last night--a sort of broad, odd chap he was, +with ears? I don't think I've seen him before." + +"Oh, Mr. Blair," Joan smiled at the description. "He danced with me so +much because he didn't know any one else." + +"A stranger here? Where does he come from?" + +"I don't know--the slums, I fancy. Ask Ellen Neal. He's a pal of hers. +But he's a Louisville product, I believe." + +Effie May glanced at her casually, "Didn't you like him, dearie?" + +"Oh, well enough. Did you?" + +"Yes," said the other, "I did. He's honest, and he stands up so +straight--doesn't sort of droop over a girl as if his spine was feeble, +like some of 'em do. I like a chap to stand up on his own two pins." + +"But his ears, Effie May!" + +"Oh, well, what's ears? Just means that his mother forgot to tuck 'em +into his cap when he was a baby. Now if his eyes bulged out, that would +be another thing. You look out for any man with a bulging eye, Joan." + +"Very well," she agreed, "I will. What's dangerous about a bulging eye?" + +"Stoopidity, girlie. Just plain bone-headedness. And if there's anything +in the world more dangerous than that, I don't know it!--Let's ask your +eary young man again to something, shall we?" + +"I begin to think he's _your_ eary young man!" smiled Joan. + +Sometimes she almost forgot herself and liked her step-mother. There was +something so human about the woman.... + +So it happened that Mr. Blair was delighted and amazed and a little +perturbed to receive a few days later a note from Joan Darcy, inviting +him to sit on a certain evening in the Darcy box at the impending Horse +Show. One of the Darcy guests had failed at the last moment, and Joan +had accepted the suggestion that she ask her protégé. + +He rushed downstairs to spread the glad tidings to Ellen, who was in +turn surprised and a little perturbed. She had not imagined "that woman" +so forgiving. But then Ellen was a person who did nothing by halves. +Justice to the enemy was not in her creed. Where she hated, she hated. + +"Just look at it!" exulted Mr. Blair, exhibiting his note. "She asks for +'the pleasure of my company'! She 'hopes a previous engagement won't +prevent'! (It won't.) All in her own hand, mind you!" + +"What did you expect--typewriting?" commented Ellen, a little tartly. +She was always tart when pleased. + +Next arose the question of what to wear. Those people who fancy that +this question confines itself to the lighter-minded sex have much to +learn. They have not watched a youth of twenty-five--or thirty-five--or +sixty-five--trying to ascertain in advance whether long or short tails +shall grace a particular occasion. And if there is a more pitiable +spectacle than the misery of a man appearing, say, in sack-suit and +brown boots, where others of his sex gleam as to bosom and foot-gear, +the author has yet to see it. Whereas any woman worth her salt, who +happens to be dressed in hat and jacket among much décolletage, can +manage to make the other women present feel immodest. + +Ellen Neal was of no help to Mr. Blair at this crisis. He consulted once +more the oracle, Jakie Florsheimer. Archie had been to the Horse Show +before, of course, but merely to see horses. This was a very different +matter. Even Mr. Florsheimer admitted himself doubtful. + +"You see, it's like this," he said, scratching his curly head. "If you +was to go in a sporting way, y' see, I'd say a natty little sack, +checked maybe, with one of our $3.99 plaid vests, and a Derby hat. But +sitting in one of them boxes with society girls, all dolled up like they +are, y' see--honest, I don't know would it be better to wear your +swallow-tail or yet a frock with light stripe pants. Search me, Arch! +You got me guessing." + +Mr. Blair raised the question among his fellow employees without +obtaining satisfaction, and at last in his desperation actually tackled +the head of the firm, whose name sometimes appeared in the newspapers as +among those present. + +Thanks to this gentleman's surprised advice, Archibald made a most +proper appearance on the night appointed, and this time gloves were not +forgotten. Also, during the course of the afternoon, Joan received a +mysterious bouquet of roses bearing the legend, "From a Friend." + +She chuckled over this quite affectionately. "He's funny," she thought, +"but he's really a dear!" + +Archibald was very much surprised when she thanked him for the roses, +and deeply relieved that she did not seem to think him "fresh." + +"How did you guess it was me?" he wondered. + +"Well--I haven't so many 'friends' whom it might have been." + +"_You?_"--His incredulity was flattering. + +She smiled. "Not many who would not want their generosity known, Mr. +Blair. Usually in our world, when people do things for one they like to +get full credit for it. They even expect a return in kind!" + +Lightly as she spoke, her tone troubled him. Glancing at her furtively, +he realized that this was not the little girl he had first seen in +haughty tears on the train, and yearned over because she seemed too +young to know the meaning of trouble. Now she was infinitely more +approachable, but also, somehow, infinitely farther away. If he was not +mistaken she had learned very thoroughly the meaning of trouble. There +was a listless droop of the lids, a slightly weary inflection of the +bright voice, that did not "belong." He remembered her as serious and +dreamy. She had become gay and wary. It was a change he did not like. + +But he liked Joan. He liked her almost too well. Never did a heart more +chivalrous beat beneath a $3.99 waistcoat; and if he had not long ere +this become a notable squire of dames, it was simply for lack of the +opportunity. Most of the dames he knew seemed so amply able to take care +of themselves. + +The evening under these conditions became almost as glorious an occasion +as the ball had been. True, he saw little of Joan, because other men +came and went constantly in the box, and frequently took her away with +them to stroll around the ring. Despite Mrs. Darcy's seemingly oblivious +amiability, he could not talk to her with any comfort. He had no skill +to hide the stiffness with which her presence affected him, and after a +few kind-hearted attempts to put him at ease, she left him to the Major +entirely. But that suited Archibald very well. He admired the Major +tremendously, aside from the fact that he was Joan's father. + +"A perfect gentleman," he pronounced him inwardly, taking envious note +of his manners, his well-fitting, soft-bosomed shirt, the mellifluous +tones of his really beautiful voice. + +Major Darcy, always at his best before an admiring audience, produced +some of his neatest anecdotes for this appreciative guest, and they +presently entered into a learned and congenial discussion of the Horse, +expert knowledge of which was part of their mutual birthright. It was a +proud young man who later strolled out to the bar for liquid refreshment +with Richard Darcy's arm thrust carelessly through his. Archibald had +within him great possibilities for hero-worship. + +It may have been the liquid refreshment which finally gave him courage +to propose to Joan that she stroll with him around the ring, as she had +strolled with others. At any rate, he shortly found himself part of that +meandering show of débutantes and others, which rivaled, if it did not +eclipse, the exhibit on the tanbark. He, Archie Blair, in a high silk +topper, escorting a vision in a picture-hat with a plume, and a long +gray velvet coat, and silvery furs around her neck, the price of which +would almost have bought him an education! + +He felt that at any moment a bouncer might discover him, and walk up to +murmur sinisterly in his ear, "Out this way!" + +But none did. Now and then Joan stopped and introduced him to other +visions, who gushed and babbled, asking whether she was going to +So-and-so's luncheon, and who was taking her to such-and-such a +cotillion, and what she was going to wear to the next costume ball. He +noticed that she neither gushed nor babbled in return, but seemed +pleasantly aloof, a little _distrait_, as if she were an older woman +listening to children. + +"Business of being a society girl," he commented once, half to himself. + +She gave him a smiling glance. "Yes," she said, "it has a lingo like any +other trade." + +"But _you_ don't speak it." + +"I think perhaps it's not my trade." + +He asked, greatly daring, "What is, then?" + +"I don't know," said Joan, "yet." + +Just then a rather dissipated-looking boy with his hat on the back of +his head passed them, and paused. + +"Oh, Blair!" he said, lifting his hat to Joan. + +"Hello, Carmichael!" Archie greeted him. + +"My sister told me to tell you you'd better come to our box and +apologize. She says you were to take supper with her at some ball or +other, and never turned up." + +"Oh, gee!" exclaimed Archie, remorsefully, "I forgot it; clean as a +whistle!" + +"Better come and grovel, then," grinned the other, and passed on. + +Joan looked at him in amusement. "Do you mean to say you never took +Emily Carmichael out to supper after she had asked you to? What are you +going to say to her?" + +"That I forgot," said Archie simply. He certainly could not explain that +the cause of his forgetfulness was the _contretemps_ of having requested +his hostess under a misapprehension to leave her own entertainment! + +Joan chuckled. "Well! I'm certainly glad I didn't ask you to have supper +with me!" + +"I wouldn't have forgotten that," said Archibald. + +She looked at him out of the corner of her eyes. It was said neither +shyly not gallantly nor boldly, simply as a statement of fact. + +Joan was very tired of flirtation just then. She shied away from any +hint of the personal like a burnt child in the vicinity of fire. She had +no desire for further victims of her bow and spear; but she did want +friends. It occurred to her that this frank, tactless, simple young man +might do very well in that capacity. + +"Take me right back to our box," she commanded, "and go and make your +peace with Miss Carmichael! Don't you know you can't afford to +antagonize such a power at court?" + +He obeyed meekly. With quite a proprietary interest, she watched his +awkward entry into the enemy's country, his introduction to Carmichael +_père_ and Carmichael _mère_, a lady who looked on life (the Darcys +included) through a rather invidious lorgnon. This lorgnon trained +itself on Archibald at close range. + +"Poor Mr. Blair!" thought Joan. + +But a little while later she was surprised to see that her protégé and +Mrs. Carmichael had joined the ranks of the strollers and were chatting +and laughing together with quite an air of old friendship. He looked up +at her as they passed, shyly, and Joan clapped her hands softly to +indicate approval. + +The last ring of horses was showing when he finally returned. + +"Well," Joan rallied him. "I thought you'd gone over to the enemy for +good!" + +"Judge Carmichael and I were talking over old times when I used to sell +him papers," explained Archibald. "I reminded him of a day when he +treated me to a pair of shoes because he said my toes sticking out made +him feel chilly.... But are they your enemies?" + +Joan bit her lip. She did not like her self-consciousness about the +Carmichaels. "Really, I don't know," she said indifferently. "They +certainly are not my friends." + +"I think they'd like to be, though!" remarked the unexpected Archie. +"Miss Carmichael said you were the only one of the débutantes who looked +worth while, and she asked a lot of questions about you and your father, +and said she would have been to see you long ago, except for--" He +stopped abruptly. He had almost finished the quotation _verbatim_. + +Joan flushed. "I trust you were able to give her a good account of us!" +she remarked haughtily. + +Archie answered in all innocence. "I told her Mrs. Darcy was your +step-mother." + +Despite her annoyance, Joan had to laugh at that. After all it was too +absurd, this protégé of hers, this discovery out of the slums, standing +sponsor for the Darcy family with the Carmichaels!... + +It did not occur to her to invite him to call. She had not as yet +plumbed the depths of his social ignorance. He stood down-cast +throughout the leave-takings, the remarks of "See you to-morrow," and +"One o'clock lunch, did you say?" realizing that this wonderful evening +was over, and not daring to hope that such luck would come his way a +third time. He looked rather like a big, humble puppy that is about to +be shut out of the house at night. + +It was Effie May who noticed the resemblance. "Be sure you pay your two +party-calls promptly, Mr. Blair," was her parting suggestion. "And if +you happen to be at the Horse Show any other night this week, drop in at +our box, you know." + +"Yes 'm! yes 'm, I certainly will," he replied to both these +hints--stiffly, because it was the only way he could manage to speak to +this lady. But his ears were quite pink with pleasure. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +On Joan's return from Longmeadow she had found her family already +beginning to prepare for what was by far the most ambitious effort +undertaken by Effie May as yet: her formal début into society. Joan, +rather alarmed, protested. She wished nothing so much at the moment as +to be allowed to slip into some inconspicuous corner and recover her +lost confidence. She was in no mood for a continuation of an empty +social career, particularly under the ægis of her father's wife. Other +plans were beginning to formulate vaguely in her head, and she wanted +leisure to perfect them. + +But here for the first time she came into direct contact with the +amiable, easy-going, unescapable persistence she had before suspected in +her step-mother, and which made her feel as helpless as a caged rabbit; +a much indulged and petted rabbit, to be sure, in which it was sheer +ingratitude not to love its cage. Effie May used neither argument nor +explanation. She simply went her chosen way, and the rest of the +household perforce accompanied her. + +Joan, herself not unaccustomed to pursuing her own path, did not submit +without a struggle. The difficulty was to bring the matter out into the +open. Effie May had a habit of taking things for granted that made +discussion gratuitous. + +"Father," Joan said determinedly one night at dinner, when the two +elders were discussing the details of the impending ball, "why do we +give a ball, anyway? It's not as if we were under many obligations to +people--rather the contrary. And what's the point of entertaining for me +in this wholesale way, when I do not wish to be a débutante?" + +"Don't _wish_ to be a débutante?" cried the astonished gentleman. "Why, +my child, the pollywog might as well decide that it does not wish to be +a frog! At a certain age young women of a certain position naturally +have to be presented to society. What else is there for them to do?" + +"Oh, lots of things," said the girl with impatient vagueness. "They can +be teachers or librarians, or--stenographers, or journalists--something +useful, you know." + +"Never," said the Major with pained emphasis, "while I am alive and able +to support her, shall a daughter of mine step out of that station in +life to which it has pleased God to call her! No lady of my family has +yet, I thank God, been under the necessity of becoming anything +'useful'--Useful! Absurd!" + +(Joan had a momentary vision of her frail mother at sewing-machine and +housework; the three Misses Darcy struggling to make ends meet by means +of paying guests who did not always pay.) + +"May I ask," continued her father with a dignity that verged upon +acerbity, "the reason for this sudden desire on your part to be +'useful'? It is a desire usually confined, I think, to ladies who have +ceased to be ornamental," he added, with a gallant inclination in her +direction. + +"Oh, Dad, you know what I mean!" she said rather desperately. "I simply +want to be independent." + +"And where can you be more independent than under your father's roof?" +he demanded. "Free to come and go as you choose, free to entertain your +friends as you like, to make what purchases you will, to run up accounts +at the shops--" + +"And without a penny I can call my own!" blurted out Joan. + +"As to that," he remarked with a shrug of distaste, "you have merely to +come to your father, my child." + +"Exactly," said Joan bitterly. + +Here Effie May entered the arena, fighting as usual upon the side of her +victim. "The girl's right. She ought to have her own allowance--as you +were saying only last night, Dickie." + +"Was I?'" murmured the Major. "Yes, yes, so I was! An allowance of--How +much did I say, my darling?" + +"Two hundred dollars a month," prompted his darling. "Do you think you +could manage on that, Joan?" + +The girl lifted shamed eyes to her step-mother. She could not bear to +look at her father, puffing himself out with conscious pride. + +"Very well," she said in a low voice. "I'll be a débutante since you +wish it--I'll spend the money and wear the clothes you provide, and eat +the food you give me--but understand me! I'm only doing it because I +have no choice." + +She suddenly turned and ran out of the room. The Major stared after her, +blankly. + +"What's come over the child? She used to be so sweet-tempered and +reasonable, grateful for everything. All this nonsense about +independence! What does she mean by it, anyway?" + +"She simply means she wants a man of her own, like every blessed +mother's daughter of us," explained Effie May comfortably, "and that's +what I'm trying to help her to, and it makes her sort of ashamed because +she's got to be helped. That's all!... Say, old pet--" she seated +herself upon his knee, as was her cosy custom when opportunity +offered--"who's this chap Nikolai, anyway, that's always writing to her? +He gives her some pretty good presents. That piece of aquamarine he sent +her when she graduated--it's worth a lot of money. Is he rich?" + +"He's a very successful writer, I believe." + +"Hmm! Old? _Too_ old, I mean?" + +"For what?" + +"Why, for Joan, old duckie." + +"Joan?" repeated the Major vaguely. He had for the moment lost interest +in his daughter's affairs. The ex-widow Calloway made rather a luscious +armful. He roused himself to the required attention, however. "For Joan? +Why, good gad! the man's old enough to be her father! He was a friend of +Mary's." + +"Before she married you?" + +"Oh, no, afterwards. She picked him up somewhere when Joan was a baby." + +"_Oho!_" murmured Effie May with an indescribable expression. "I didn't +know Mary was the sort to have friends after she was married!" (It is +just possible that the bride was rather fed up on the virtues of her +predecessor.) But a sudden stiffening of the arms that enfolded her +warned her of rocks ahead, and she finished smoothly, "I thought she was +too interested in you to know that any one else existed." + +"By no means," smiled Richard Darcy, mollified. "On the contrary, she +took an interest in many people whom I found tiresome in the extreme. +Her lame ducks, I called them. Mr. Nikolai was one of those." + +"Why lame?" + +"Well, at the time we first knew him it seems the girl he was engaged to +had just thrown him over because she found out that he was a Jew." + +Effie May gave a little squeal of horror, "A Jew! Well, I don't blame +her for shying at the altar! Of all the men I've known in my day, I +never _did_ go with any Jew!" + +"I confess I have something of the same prejudice myself," admitted the +Major, "Jews and the canile.... But Mary was different, somehow. Not +democratic exactly--she was one of the most fastidious women I have ever +known. But people were simply people to her, particularly if they were +in trouble. She and Nikolai became great friends. And of course since +then he had grown to be quite a distinguished person, Jew or no Jew." + +"I shouldn't have thought you'd have wanted him round the house, +though!" mused Effie May, as though Mr. Nikolai's Judaism might have +been contagious. + +"Oh, well, he was so devoted to the child, and so grateful, and in fact +made himself useful in so many ways," explained Richard Darcy with a +slight blush, "that I had not the heart to object to his presence. +Besides, as he is not robust, and has no progeny of his own, I thought +that in time perhaps Joan--You see?" + +"I see! Of course Jew money is as good as any money, especially when the +Jew's dead." She nodded thoughtfully. "But it puts him out of the +question as a husband for Joan." + +"My darling, he has never been _in_ the question as a husband for Joan! +What an idea! Was it so happy in its own little nest that it wants to +find nesties for all the other little birdies!" cooed the bridegroom, +impatiently drawing her down into his arms again. + +"Um-m-m!" responded the bride, yielding without undue reluctance. + +And so Joan found them as she came remorsefully downstairs some time +later, two mature love-birds perched upon a single twig, as it were, +oblivious of time and the grins of passing servants; and she turned away +hastily to shut out the horrid sight. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +One thing almost reconciled her to the distasteful idea of entering +further into the social world under the wing of her step-mother, and +that was the gratification, the artless delight, taken by her father's +cousins in the idea of assisting at a Galt House Ball, almost in the +capacity of hostesses. There was something piteous to the girl, though +humiliating, about the three little spinsters' unflagging interest in +the amusements of people who had forgotten, if they ever knew of, the +Misses Darcys' existence. Despite their long retirement from what they +called "the polite world," these ladies were inveterate students of the +social column, and constituted in themselves a complete local edition of +"Who's Who." + +Whenever Joan went to see them--which was rather often nowadays, for her +late experience had had the not unusual effect of softening her +comprehension, while it hardened her surfaces--they greeted her with +eager gossip, such as: "I see the little Jones girl is to be married at +last!" or, "The paper doesn't mention your name at the Smiths' cotillion +last night.... Surely you were there?" + +In their eyes she was evidently a most romantic figure, the embodiment +of gaiety and youth and of all they had hoped but somehow failed to be. +They exclaimed with quite personal delight over her frocks, her pretty +underthings, her dainty shoes, the silver-fox furs Stefan Nikolai had +sent her from Siberia. + +"You're going to be one of the belles of the winter!" prophesied Miss +Virginia raptly. "I can tell from the way the paper speaks of you +already! 'Miss Darcy, the fascinating daughter of Major and Mrs. Richard +Throckmorton Darcy, lately returned from the East'--etc. Clothes do help +so much," she added wistfully. "I sometimes think that if dear papa had +been able to manage better dresses for us--" She left her remark +unfinished, a conversational characteristic of all the Darcy ladies. + +"You must remember that dear papa had three of us to provide for, +whereas Cousin Richard has only one," reminded Miss Iphigenia loyally. +"Besides, you were too pretty to need anything but the simplest white +muslins, Virgie. Fine dresses would not have been half as becoming." + +"What nonsense, Genie!" blushed her sister. "I'm sure you didn't need +clothes any more than I did, with all your beautiful hair." + +Joan's evil imagination pictured her Cousin Iphigenia frequenting the +polite world clad, like the Lady Godiva, chiefly in hair, and she +chuckled; but at the same time she kissed both ladies impulsively. + +This was one of the things that brought her to the dingy house so +frequently; the atmosphere of affectionate appreciation that warmed it. +In her father's family--and it was one of the Darcys' undoubted +charms--all geese were swans, and they put not only their own but each +other's best foot foremost with a touching unanimity. The three sisters +regarded each other as paragons, exceeded in degree only by their first +cousin Richard, who, in addition to being a Darcy, was likewise a man, +and by their first-cousin-once-removed Joan, who in addition to being a +Darcy was young. As to their cousin Richard's new wife--the name she had +assumed in marriage banished before birth any qualms they might have +felt as to her inborn qualifications for the polite world. A Darcy could +naturally do no wrong. + +One of the things Joan liked best in Effie May was her consistent +kindness to these rather tiresome and unimportant spinsters. "Buying +them!" she had thought at first. But after all why should any one +trouble to buy them? Hers was not entirely a material kindness, either. +She consulted them faithfully in social matters, even in household +matters (though the Misses Darcy were not notable housekeepers). She and +the Major and the limousine accompanied them occasionally to church, the +only form of social dissipation in which they still indulged. Altogether +she exhibited in dealing with them a tact which in anybody else Joan +would have attributed to good breeding. + +One morning, when the girl stopped in to make her cousins a visit, the +opening door revealed an unusual amount of chatter coming down from the +floor above; soft, pretty chatter (like her father, the Darcy ladies had +charming voices), mingled with the steady hum of a sewing-machine. + +"What's up, Susy?" she asked the languid colored slattern who let her +in. + +"De ladies is gittin' ready fo' de ball, I'specks, Miss Joan, fittin' on +dey new dresses." + +"New dresses? A ball?" repeated the surprised Joan, who did not connect +these activities with her own début, scheduled to take place a month or +so later. "I must investigate!" and ignoring Susy's best efforts to toll +her into the parlor, she pursued the chatter to its source. + +She avoided that parlor whenever possible, having earlier exhausted its +charms. It was a rather dismal chamber, with shutters always closed +against a too-revealing sunlight. Innumerable small tables and a double +mantel-shelf were crowded with articles of _vertu_ in the shape of +hand-painted vases, and ginger-jars, and marble hands. On the walls, +concealing as much as possible of the original decoration, hung +specimens of all the artistic aspirations of the Darcy family and +friends; "Yards of Pansies," still-life studies of a fan in interesting +juxtaposition to a coal-scuttle, and the like. Concealment seemed to be +the motif of the decoration-scheme. The fireplace was concealed by +moribund cat-tails, the former usefulness of a spinning-wheel was +concealed by gilt paint, the function of the lamp was concealed, if not +permanently impaired, by a ruffled blue silk petticoat reminiscent for +the best of reasons of a certain blue silk party-dress that had once +done yeoman's service in the family. + +The elegance of their parlor enabled Joan's cousins to ask several +dollars more a month for their rooms than did any other house in the +square; but Joan, who, had inherited from the maternal side a strain of +practicality, positively ached in her joints at the thought of the hours +it must take to thoroughly sweep and dust it--if indeed it ever were +thoroughly swept and dusted. + +She poked her head around a door that stood ajar on the third floor: +"May I come in?" + +The three turned startled faces to greet her, two in dressing-sacks +whose fronts bristled with pins, the third in a costume which seemed +vaguely familiar, a dress which glittered with jet sequins and was cut +so low that it was perhaps fortunate Miss Euphemia had neglected to +remove her gray flannel underwear. + +"Why, Joan!" they chorused, dismay mingling with their welcome. (Even in +conversation they were a most united family, speaking usually all three +at once.) "However did you find your way up here? That stupid Susy +should have shown you into the drawing-room!--or at least have announced +you, so that you would not have caught us like this." + +"Nonsense! Susy tried to shoo me into the parlor, but I wouldn't be +shooed; and as for 'announcing' me--she did howl up the stairs. But you +were too engrossed to hear." The naïve respect with which they treated +their prosperous young cousin always mortified Joan. She had her own +conception of the family dignity. "You'd suppose I'd never seen a +dressing-sack or a sewing-machine in my life, whereas I was raised on +'em.--My word, Cousin Euphie, how grand you are!" + +"Am I, dear? The dress is grand, I know," said Miss Euphemia doubtfully, +"but I'm not sure it's quite in my style. The others thought I'd better +have it because I'm plumpest, in the--in the chest, you know. But +really, the waist!--There simply isn't any, Joan! What would you +suggest?" + +"A yoke," said the girl gravely. + +"Just what I said!" twittered Miss Iphigenia. "Yokes _are_ being worn, +or I'm certain Joan wouldn't have suggested it. A guimpe of black net +perhaps--tucked, would you say, Joan dear!--and long wrinkled sleeves of +the same. Which would do away with the necessity for long gloves, +girls!" + +This happy thought was greeted with acclaim. "How clever of you, Genie! +We can _all_ have guimpes and long sleeves? You see, three pairs of long +white gloves--" they explained to Joan. + +"Of course!" she said hastily, making a mental note to supply her +cousins with long white gloves if she had to ask her step-mother for the +money. + +They showed her the other dresses eagerly; an amber-colored satin--"With +slippers to match, my dear!"--and one of old-rose brocade which Miss +Virginia almost kissed in her affection for it. + +"I sometimes think if I could have had a dress like this earlier--" she +murmured. "Though of course my real color, like yours, Joan, was blue. A +blue sash, and a pink rose in the hair. As General Fitzhugh Lee once +said to me at a Galt House ball--" + +"No, wasn't it at the Governor's Inauguration, sister?" interposed Miss +Euphemia. + +In the gentle altercation which ensued, Joan never heard just what the +gallant general had said to her cousin Virginia; but she suspected it of +having some connection with blue eyes. + +"You're a lucky girl to be presented at a Galt House ball!" they +exclaimed presently, returning to the subject in hand. "And Cousin Effie +May has really been _too_ sweet about it. Insists, simply insists that +we shall all three of us stand up with her in the receiving line! Says +she'd be terribly shy without us." (Joan smiled faintly at the picture +of Effie May being shy.) "We said to her, 'No, my dear, one of us is +_quite_ enough. We'll draw straws for it, as we always used to.' Dear +papa never let all three of us go to the same party. As he said, 'It's +too much of a good thing!' (Slang, you know.) But she assured us that +she had three evening dresses she couldn't get into,"--it was Miss +Euphemia speaking at the moment, quite unaware of any naïvété in the +sequence of her remarks,--"and that it would be a real kindness on our +part to take them off her hands. You know, dear, Cousin Effie May really +is getting a little stout. And she says it's such a problem to know what +to do with outgrown party dresses." + +"It certainly is!" agreed Miss Iphigenia, as if it were one that weighed +upon her heavily. "You simply can't give things of that sort to the +poor." + +"Why not?" murmured Joan, "if the poor would enjoy them?" + +They all rounded on her. "Why, but dear child, it wouldn't be suitable! +It would give the poor ideas beyond their station. Fancy presenting a +spangled net evening-gown to--Susy, say! It would never do!" + +"I suppose not, because she would certainly burst with joy. But think," +mused Joan, "what an enviable death!" + +The Darcy ladies looked at her uncertainly. They were never quite sure +whether their young cousin was jesting or not. They preferred people to +laugh when they joked. It made things clearer. + +"Never mind," the girl added hastily. "Susie's not going to get these +magnificent costumes, anyway!--and I am so glad you are coming to my +ball, dears. We'll be a whole family of débutantes!" + +Afterwards she realized soberly how near her pride had come to depriving +these innocent ladies of a real pleasure. Pride, she reflected, may be +very close kin to selfishness. She postponed her own plans a while +longer. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +These were at their best vague plans. Only one thing was definite about +them. They were to include no more make-believe. Whatever came +hereafter, Joan intended to be herself. The world must accept her on her +own terms; in the phrase of her childhood "like her or lump her!" + +The difficulty was to decide just what that self might be. Hitherto it +had altered obligingly to suit different situations; blowing now hot, +now cold, according to the wind of circumstance. But surely underneath +there was a definite entity, which did not chop and change and adapt +itself, but remained Joan? + +At school she had shown no particular aptitude that would help her +now--or rather had shown an aptitude in so many directions as to give +rise to a widespread impression that "Joan Darcy would get somewhere +some day," but which had caused more than one of her teachers to shake +her head and murmur something about Jack of all trades being master of +none. She herself had found this facility convenient, not in the pursuit +of study but in the avoidance of it. She had managed to slip through the +brief period allotted by Richard Darcy for the necessities of a young +gentlewoman's education, with the minimum of work combined with the +maximum of pleasure. It seemed to her then, and afterwards, the wisest +possible use to make of a superior brain. Possibly the mental diet +offered for her consideration was not altogether suited to Joan's +peculiar requirements. + +Certainly she came away from school with little more knowledge than she +had taken into it, even with regard to herself. Vague yearnings she was +aware of, vague inhibitions and promptings; together with tastes and +distastes that were not vague at all. She put the latter down on a bit +of paper, in an effort to come to a clearer understanding of the girl +who was Joan Darcy. + +She liked: + +1. Books. On any subject whatever, provided they did not try to teach +anything and came up to her rather exacting standards of style. + +2. Dancing--if people kept in step with the music and did not hold her +too close. + +3. Out-of-doors, especially when the wind was blowing. + +4. Music, if there was no one around to discuss it or analyse it. + +5. Children, without their families. + +6. Almost any sort of a dog, particularly if it did not seem to belong +to anybody. Strays regarded her as their own. + +She disliked (and here there were no qualifications. It was never hard +for Joan to say what she disliked!): + +1. Debt. + +2. Effusiveness. + +3. Humility. + +4. Vulgarity--under which heading she included everything her +step-mother did, or said, or thought, or wore, or was. Yet she did not +quite dislike her step-mother. + +This exhaustive survey left her with the impression of a hypercritical, +overconfident, extremely unpleasant young ego, which intended to get as +much out of life as possible with as little given in return, and which +so far had got about what it deserved. She was glad that no one of her +acquaintance was clever enough to see her quite as clearly as she saw +herself. + +Except, of course, Mr. Nikolai: and he did not count. + +There was something odd about Stefan Nikolai's attitude toward his +fellow-men. He seemed to regard humanity as if it were a vast picture +puzzle which it was his privilege to take apart and put together again +for his amusement. He asked nothing of any piece of the puzzle except +that it fit eventually into the spot where it belonged. Joan had a +comfortable feeling that he would presently find her spot for her in +case she failed to find it for herself. But she preferred to find it for +herself, if possible. + +His letter in response to the one in which she informed him of her +impending engagement to Eduard Desmond had confirmed her faith in his +uncanny insight. She did not realize how vividly her untrammeled +descriptions made people and conditions about her known to a student of +human kind. If she always saw things more clearly herself after she had +set them down in black and white, the clarity doubtless extended to +other vision. + +He wrote from Russia, where he had been living for a while among the +mouzhiks in order to understand how mouzhiks live. His curiosity about +such things was insatiable. + +"I also have a wish to see how Tzars live, since it is an order that is +passing," he added casually. "But I fear for one of my race that will be +difficult. Mouzhiks have less reason to fear us Jews than have Tsars." + +Then he went off at one of his usual tangents, and described to Joan +briefly the theory of vaccination. "It is a question of phagocytes, you +understand. Metchnikoff's idea is that when a disease manifests itself a +certain number of phagocytes detach themselves from the blood to fight +it. The stronger the virus injected of that disease, the greater the +number of phagocytes formed; and it is the presence of these detached +phagocytes after the virus has run its course that render the patient +immune from further attack." + +("What," wondered bewildered Joan, "is the man talking about? It sounds +like a medical almanac!") + +But as there was usually some method in Mr. Nikolai's tangents, she read +on. At the end of the last page he enlightened her, and disposed of the +affair with Eduard Desmond in two sentences. + +"By this time you will be recuperating from your first love-attack. +Severe, doubtless, but so much the better. More phagocytes!" + +It was his only reference to her revelations with regard to Eduard +Desmond. Evidently to the scientific mind love in its various +manifestations was merely a form of mal-ease to which humanity is +subject. + +Joan sincerely hoped that enough of the phagocytes had been released by +the innoculation to render her immune from further attack forever. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +Social life, in a small American city that prides itself upon traditions +of social life, may be as absorbing, if not as profitable, as that in +any of the world's great capitals--perhaps more absorbing. For while it +is possible in Paris, Rome, London, New York, to disappear at will out +of the current and no questions asked, such a procedure would be as +impracticable in one of the self-sufficient societies of our South or +East as for a diving duck to remain ad libitum in the bottom of the +duck-pond. He may remain, to be sure, even until he drowns; but his +corpse need not expect a welcome when it returns to the surface, nor +will there be any attempts to resuscitate him. It behooves a +socially-inclined duck to hug the company of his fellows. + +Joan was caught up presently into a whirl of little events which +effectually precluded introspection and even thought. Dance followed +dance; there were teas, luncheons, dinners--above all Bridge, which was +just beginning to oust euchre from a society that must have its +gambling, even if the stakes be merely cut-glass fern dishes. The time +was not yet, in the South at least, when gentlewomen appeared at card +parties purse in hand; but certain hostesses, notably our Effie May, +soon learned to offer prizes that made attention to the game worth +while. Mrs. Darcy's Bridges were invariably successful. + +There began to appear, even among the freshest of the débutantes, an +expression described by Joan to her friend Nikolai as the Bridge +Face--an eager, grim look of do-or-die, which Joan did not find +becoming. (Perhaps this was because she herself never learned to play +the game, except with her hands.) + +A wave of interest in things equestrian followed the Horse Show for a +time, too, and Joan was one of several who rode out two or three days a +week with a riding-master on hired horses, feeling very picturesque and +Kentuckian. She was determined never to be caught napping again as she +had been at Longmeadow. + +Effie May also signified her intention of joining the equestriennes, and +actually appeared on two occasions in a habit which fitted her as its +cover fits a pincushion. But her misery was so apparent, though silent, +that Joan presently advised her to give it up. + +"I guess I never was intended for a horseback rider," she admitted with +a sigh. "No, I'm not exactly scared, dearie--who'd be afraid of old +trained sheep like them? You ought to have seen the trotters Calloway +used to drive! Nothing ever come too fast for Calloway. But somehow it's +different when you're on top of 'em, with nothing to hold on by. And +then those bones in front. It was something fierce!" + +She exhibited to the puzzled Joan certain injuries to her person which +made her efforts at equestrianism seem nothing short of heroic. + +"But why not go without bones in front, as I do?" + +Effie May grinned. "Ever see me without a corset, hon? And you never +will! No woman of my weight should ever be seen in public in her natural +figger, not even in her coffin. Say, Joan, promise me you won't let the +undertaker lay me out without a corset on!" + +Joan promised--of which promise more anon. + +She herself shortly became the riding-master's best pupil, a fact in +which her father took great pride. + +"A matter of inheritance, doubtless," he said modestly. "As you know, +Dollykins, I am a believer in the power of inheritance." + +And though he declined himself to join in the exercise (possibly not +wishing to put too great a strain upon the power of inheritance), his +Christmas present to his daughter was a beautiful little gaited +saddle-mare, especially selected, trained, and--such was his +intimation--bred for her use by a horse-raising cousin in the heart of +the Bluegrass. + +It was a docile, friendly creature, christened by its donor "Pegasus," +in order not to lay too much emphasis on its sex (the Major was rather +nice in such matters). And it soon learned to nuzzle Joan for sugar and +follow her about the yard like a big dog, looking quite injured and +surprised that she did not take it into the house with her. In her +delight and gratitude, Joan almost forgot to wonder whether the +horse-raising cousin had been paid for Pegasus, and by whom. + +The possession of a horse automatically increased her acquaintance with +human nature, introducing her to an element of Louisville society +hitherto unknown to her except at a distance--the negro. Mrs. Darcy +employed, with the exception of a chauffeur and a yard-boy, what she +designated as "white help." She, like Ellen Neal, had an inherent +distrust of a black skin. But wherever there is a good horse may also be +found, drawn by an irresistible affinity, all the male negroes of the +vicinity. + +Joan, advised and assisted by the chauffeur, the yard-boy, and +innumerable colored acquaintances from the alley, soon learned more +about horses and horsemanship than could have been taught her in all the +riding-schools in the world. Pegasus was brought up literally by hand. +The yard-boy proved himself particularly adept, though how he came by so +much knowledge of horse-flesh in his eighteen ragged years of cutting +grass and whitening front steps and washing windows, was a puzzle to +Joan. She asked him once. + +"Huccom I knows how to do wif _hawses_?" he repeated, scratching his +head. "Laws, Miss Joan, _I_ dunno! Huccum I knows how to chaw terbacca, +or to w'istle thoo my teef? Reck'n I was jes' natchelly bo'n dat-away." + +She wondered what, with the gradual disappearance of the horse, would +become of his friend the negro. Perhaps both, like the Indian, were +doomed soon to become a legend in the land.... + +Richard Darcy formed quite a habit of dropping in at the stable himself +to give Joan the benefit of his advice and inexperience; and his +attitude toward their colored visitors was a source of never-failing +interest to her. He treated them with an off-hand casualness quite +impossible to his daughter, to whom they were a race apart, to be pitied +and dealt with gently. The Major dealt with them anything but gently. He +bullied them, swore at them, ordered them around as if they were still +goods and chattels, and apparently they loved him for it. One and all +they sprang to his least suggestion, from the humblest alley-rat of the +neighborhood to the haughtiest chauffeur--and there is nothing haughtier +in the world than a colored man in livery. At the same time, they felt +quite free to confide in him the most intimate details of their private +lives; and they asked without reserve for anything of his that took +their fancy. His cigars, his small change, the very clothes on his back, +were not sacred from their requisition. + +"Please, Major, gimme two-bits?" one of them would suggest tentatively. + +"What do you want two-bits for, you infernal beggar?" + +"To buy me a drink with, please, suh. My th'oat's dusty." + +"A damn good reason for a damn impudent request," Richard Darcy would +grumble, his hand going into his pocket. + +Once Joan heard a dressy youth, who was at the moment rubbing a special +polish onto Pegasus, remark: "Dat's a mighty fine tie you-all's wearin' +dis mawnin', suh. Gimme hit?" + +"Well, of all the infernal cheek!" cried the Major. + +"Gimme hit when hit's done worn out, den?" + +"D'you think I've nothing better to do than watch my clothes for signs +of wear so that I may present them to _you_, you ugly rascal? I will +not!" + +But some days later Joan recognized on the negro's neck the tie in +question, which appeared to have worn out with unprecedented rapidity. + +From signs like this Joan came to the conclusion that there existed +between Richard Darcy and the negroes something of the same affinity as +between the negro and the horse. They were all part together of a day +that has passed. It was another of the records of the old South for +which she was constantly looking; and a far finer, truer relation it +seemed to her than the mistrust and dislike which independence has +latterly fostered between the races. She recalled that her father had +never in his life spoken of his family's servants as "our slaves," but +always as "our people." To him all negroes were still "our people"; a +responsibility and a charge, to be kept in order, bullied perhaps, but +protected, too, because of their great need of protection. And to all +negroes, if to no one else in the world, Richard Darcy was a great man, +one of the masters. + +She tried to express something of this idea once to Archie Blair, who +was always so eager to follow her mental excursions that she sometimes +made the mistake of believing he did follow them. But for once he +disagreed with his oracle utterly. + +"Niggers are the curse of the South," he announced. "Always have been +and always will be." + +She attempted to make him explain this peremptory point of view, but +Archie was not very good at explaining. He was one of the people who +know what they know without knowing why they know it (blood-brothers to +those art-critics who are always aware of what they like when they see +it). Such do not shine in debate. He could only shake his head and +repeat his conviction that niggers were the curse of the South. + +She changed the subject rather impatiently. She would have liked to +retort that well-bred people at least do not call them "niggers." But +somehow Archibald was not fair game. + +She was seeing rather more than she had expected of her protégé. In +Louisville there is a certain catholicity in the matter of big +entertainments. That portion of the population which possesses the +inborn or acquired right to call itself "Society" is not large enough to +supply a sufficient number of dancing-men to sustain the true belle's +boast that she never dances more than once around a ballroom with the +same partner. Indeed, in the matter of belles themselves there is a +certain catholicity. Every pretty girl who grows up in the old town with +any pretentious to grammar and respectability and polite behavior has +one chance in her lifetime to foot it with the best. She may, if she so +wishes, enroll herself among the season's débutantes. + +If her family can afford a certain amount of entertaining to support +this pretention, well and good. If not, she must manage as best she can +with the friendly aid of the society column--no small power in the land. +Let the would-be débutante but supply herself with presentable dancing +frocks and slippers, and Louisville will do the rest.--For one season. +During that brief time, however, she must make good her footing by means +of matrimony or otherwise, or back to the chimney-corner for her, like +Cinderella when the cock crew. The town is full of disappointed little +Cinderellas, comforting themselves with good works or a humble +domesticity, dreaming who knows what dreams of the Might-Have-Been. + +They do not all return to the chimney-corner, however. Sometimes they +stay. Sometimes they fare forth joyously into a larger world, and their +names lend luster to greater events than are chronicled in our society +column. One, at least, trails gracefully through ducal halls, and the +strawberry leaves are almost as becoming to her pretty hair as the rose +she wore to her first Galt House ball.--Perhaps Louisville, with a +reputation to sustain, is wise to give her unknown Cinderellas the +benefit of the doubt. + +The male Cinderellas, if they are not welcomed with quite the same +interest, are at least not as soon thrust back into the limbo of things +forgotten. Once their names appear in the list of presentable dancers, +they may arrive year after year at the larger balls, eat, drink and make +merry, select such partners as please them, and retire into their lairs +again until the next entertainment, with no further obligation on their +part than perhaps a perfunctory handshaking with their host and hostess. +Not even that, if modesty forbids. Nor need anything bar the gates to +them except age, conspicuous behavior, or the lack of a long-tailed +coat. + +Archibald Blair presently got used to the surprise of receiving +frequently in his mail engraved invitations from people who did not know +him, and began to look upon them as a special dispensation on the part +of Providence to favor his pursuit of Miss Joan Darcy.--If anything so +entirely self-effacing could be called a pursuit! His wish was merely to +see her whenever possible, to listen to her whenever possible, and if +absolutely necessary to talk to her till somebody more worthy came to +take his place. And having made, a week apart, his two party-calls as +suggested by her inexplicable but obliging step-mother, he would have +been at a loss as to how to manage further encounters if it had not been +for the assistance of these providential invitations. + +Archie also, being quick to take a hint, made prompt party-calls on the +providers of the invitations, a fact which set him apart among dancing +men; so that presently he began to see Joan not only at large balls but +at smaller buffet suppers and the like, even at theater parties, when a +hostess's need was desperate. All of which surprised Joan far more than +it surprised him. He accepted the whole thing as a miracle, part of the +incredible good luck which had begun to happen to him when he landed his +first big order in Philadelphia, and got on to the train for home to +find the One and Only sitting in the chair behind him. + +"Whoops, my dear! I've got 'em locoed," said grateful Archie to himself; +referring presumably to the Fates. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +His luck did not confine itself to social matters. One day the president +of the firm, a Mr. Moore, greatly admired in the office because of his +hauteur with employees, sent for Archie for no apparent reason except to +chat about life in general and business in particular. Now business was +a thing which Archibald enjoyed as some men enjoy golf. Getting about +among all sorts of people, making them like you whether they wanted to +or not, persuading them that the varnish or glue or wax or what-not you +happened to be selling was just a little better than any other on the +market (which Archie certainly believed it was), overcoming the natural +reluctance of human nature to try anything with which it is not +familiar, and finally retiring with a fat little order in his +vest-pocket--all this was as exciting to young Blair as the hazard of +the highway may have been to earlier Knights of the Road. With the +additional advantage of being honest. Archie always preferred, when it +was possible, to be honest. So that he had a good deal to say to Mr. +Moore. + +He liked the president, too--a stiffish old boy whom lately he had met +around quite often at the Horse Show and such places and who seemed to +eye his employee on such occasions with an oddly proprietary interest. +If Archie had ever chanced to read of Benjamin Franklin's discovery that +the way to propitiate the enemy is to ask a favor of him, he might have +understood this personal interest on Mr. Moore's part. But he had quite +forgotten that he had once committed the solecism of asking that +gentleman what to wear to the Horse Show. + +Mr. Moore presently mentioned in the course of conversation that Smith, +the sales manager of the varnish department, was about to leave the +firm. + +"Gee! What for?" said Archie sympathetically. "Is he sick?" It did not +occur to him that any one who had attained so exalted a position would +willingly leave it except for mortal reasons. + +"He goes over to the Lidden people, who've offered him more money." + +"Why, but--He's been with us since he was a boy!" + +This comment pleased Mr. Moore. "Loyalty's as rare in business as +elsewhere, Blair. I'm not sorry to let him go. He hasn't done what I +hoped he would do to put that new polish of ours on the market. Rather +fallen down there." + +"It's a peach, too! One drop and your table-top shines like a reflector +in the sun," murmured Archie perfunctorily, from sheer force of habit. A +premonition had struck him of what was coming next. + +It came. "How would you like to take charge of that end yourself?" + +For a moment Archie was speechless. He, as sales manager!--He, one of +the youngest men in the firm, put over the head of the good old boys who +had taught him the business!--Very red as to the ears, he stammered +something about lack of experience. + +"You've had a good deal of experience, Blair," said Mr. Moore. "You were +a salesman, and a successful one, at the age of--eight, wasn't it? Or +six? And then you've a sort of a knack of getting on with people. That's +as useful in handling men as in handling sales. In fact, Smith says +you're one of the best we've got. Shouldn't be surprised if he tried to +take you over to Lidden's with him." + +"He needn't!" cried Archie hotly. + +"Then you'll take the job?" + +Archie's grin began to grow until it communicated itself to the +president, to the interested stenographer, to the very clock on the wall +behind him. + +"Like a mice!" he murmured cryptically at last; but Mr. Moore appeared +to understand him.... + +It was perhaps fortunate that Ellen Neal was at home when he came +bounding up the stairs that evening, or he might have burst with his +tidings. As it was she thought he had been drinking, and began to +prepare surreptitiously a good strong cup of black coffee. (She had had +some experience with antidotes, had Ellen.) + +"A salary _and_ commissions--do you get me, wench?" he repeated for the +third time. "I'm to run the whole shebang, advertisements and all, and +put what boys I like on the road with it, while I sit back in me office +like a young Pierpont Morgan directing operations! La-la-laihoo!" he +yodled, suddenly seizing Ellen about the waist and one-stepping her +across the room, to the imminent peril of the chandelier below. + +"Mr. Archibald, behave! Me, a respectable spinster woman--" she panted. + +"True! ''tis pity 'tis, 'tis true!' Away with frivolity now! I must +remember the dignity of me office!" he declaimed, releasing her and +striking the attitude of Napoleon crossing the Alps. + +"It means better wages, don't it?" + +"Wages, woman? A salary _and_ commissions! Ha!" + +"And you'll be getting too rich and grand for the attic now, I suppose." +She sighed. "You'll be setting up at some swell boarding-house, maybe, +or perhaps at that club where all the young society fellows live?" +(Since the Darcy début into society, Ellen was almost as conversant with +its inner life as were the Misses Darcy.) + +Archie's eye glinted. "The club!--why not? I hadn't thought of that." +But then he grinned, "I can see 'em hailing me--'Yere's yer paper, +sir!--yere's yer five o'clock edition! All about de mysterious moider on +de Island!'--No, I guess it won't do. The little old Y. M. C. A.'s club +enough for me. And as for leaving my attic, Mrs. Neal--" he shook his +head. "Why, it's home to me. I reckon I'll be here till the roof falls +in--which it's likely to do at any moment in a favorable breeze." + +"Pooh! You'll be getting married before long, and you won't marry the +sort of wife who'll want to live in a garret, neither!" + +"Why not? + + "A book of verses underneath the roof, + A cup of coffee and an egg in troof, + And Mrs. Neal to cook it up for us-- + Ah, attic life were Paradise enoof!" + +he warbled; and promptly encored himself amid peals of pleasure. It was +his first attempt at composition, and he liked it. (One of the young +ladies at the Library had recently introduced him, as may be suspected, +to the Rubaiyat. Eduard Desmond was not the only young man who found in +the Persian a kindred spirit.) + +"Well, of all the crazy galoots!" muttered Ellen, deciding that coffee +would do no good here. "You'll have to go now, Mr. Archie; I'm expecting +company. Land sakes, six o'clock! and me without my biscuits in the +pan." + +He observed that the table was set for two, quite magnificently, with a +celery glass containing five red carnations in its center. + +"Floral decorations! A genuine entertainment--and I not asked! Who, who +is the lucky fellow?" + +"Go on with your impidence. 'Tain't a fellow. It's--Never you mind who +it is! And you needn't think you're going to be discovered here by +accident-like, either!"--She was pushing him toward the door as she +spoke. + +Light dawned upon Archie. "Mrs. Neal! Not _her_?" He knew that the One +and Only sometimes dropped in to take tea with her old servant, a +goddess descending to mortals; but he had never been lucky enough to +catch her in the act. + +"Yes, it is," replied Ellen, who needed no niceties of grammar to +realize the identity of Archibald's "her." "So now will you hurry?" + +He hurried; but once in the hall he paused in the grip of a daring idea. +Success had rather gone to his head. + +"Say! _Who's going to see her home?_" + +Ellen tossed her head. "Me, of course. You don't suppose I was going to +let the child go off through them dark streets all by herself?" + +"They _are_ dark streets," he said earnestly. "Very dark streets! +Murders happen in them, frequently. Pickpockets; rats!--Really, Mrs. +Neal, two women alone would hardly be safe in them." + +"Perhaps I'd better get me a policeman, then!" She shook her head +grimly, torn between affection for her new charge and devotion to her +old. "Look here, Mr. Archie, there's no use hangin' around like you been +doing lately. Oh, I know! You can't fool me. I was born with eyes all +over me, I was, like that critter in the antiquarium at the Fair--You're +a real nice young fellow, but a girl like Joan Darcy wouldn't so much as +look at you. She's proud, proud as the queen's cat. And her pa's prouder +still. They'd just as lief walk over you to their kerridge (which it's +an automobile) as if you was Sir Thingumbob's coat in the history book." + +"Fortunate coat," murmured Archie, grasping the allusion. "But who's +asking her to look at me, Mrs. Neal? I'd rather she wouldn't, really! +I'd much rather look at her. When you come right down to it, I'm sort of +proud myself!--But if I just happened to be at the front door when you +start out," he wheedled, "you wouldn't really object to my simply--well, +to my merely--" + +"Making a fool of yourself? Go as far's you like!" interrupted Ellen +tartly, closing her door in his face. + +So it chanced that as Joan stood at the threshold sometime later waiting +for Ellen to follow downstairs, making an unconscious picture in her +sweeping hat and her soft furs between the graceful pillars of the +lintel, Mr. Blair appeared nonchalantly before her. And the effect of +the encounter was so great that, intending to lift his hat and toss away +his cigarette with a Chesterfieldian carelessness, he instead tossed his +hat and lifted his cigarette,--a catastrophe that robbed him for the +moment of the powers of speech and motion. He had not expected to follow +out Ellen's program quite so literally. + +Joan's training stood her in good stead. Her lips twitched but remained +in control. The elaborateness of his surprise, together with Ellen's +rather guilty countenance, had already informed her that she was the +victim of a plot, into which she walked obligingly. + +"Well met, Mr. Blair! I wonder whether you have anything very important +to do? If not, _would_ you be good enough to take me home? Ellen really +ought not to go out in the night air with her rheumatism." + +"Dee--lighted," murmured Mr. Blair dazedly, in the language of his +favorite hero. He recovered his hat, and with it some of his former +aplomb. Indeed, as he walked away with his prize, solicitously steering +her by one elbow, he was able to wink back over his shoulder at his +fellow-conspirator. + +It was the first time that he had been really alone with the One and +Only. Hitherto their conversation had taken place against a background +of other conversations, which were somehow helpful. Even when he had +paid his two party calls in rapid succession, there had been others +present; and though the inexplicable step-mother had quite obviously +made opportunities for him to cut her out of the herd, so to speak, his +nerve at the critical moment had always failed him. + +It failed him now. He strolled beside her gloriously, as if on air, but +in utter silence. He racked his brain for suitable conversation to +offer, and for suitable language to offer it in. Somehow her crisp, +cleancut speech (Joan had quite abandoned Southernism) made his own seem +hideous, drawling, uncouth. + +Again Joan came, more or less, to the rescue. + +"Mr. Blair," she suggested gently, "if you don't mind I'd rather not be +helped along quite so much. My elbow, you know!--I sha'n't stumble, I +think. The sidewalks seem quite smooth." + +He withdrew his hand as if it had been stung. + +"Pardon _me_!" he gasped. "I didn't mean-- + +"I know--some girls like to be assisted," she said rather remorsefully +(but after all a protégé must be taught!) "You'll find most of us, +however, rather prefer our independence." + +"Votes for Women?" he suggested in all respect. + +Joan dimpled, thinking suddenly of Mrs. Rossiter. "Well, something like +that. Elbows for women, anyway!" she murmured nonsensically. + +Again the conversation languished, being confined on Archie's part +entirely to Yea, yea and Nay, nay. + +Joan was both amused and bored. It had been for some time quite evident +to her that this simple soul was not indifferent to her charms; but +there was something so boyish about his devotion, so grateful and +unobtrusive, that it did not trouble her in the least. Rather the +contrary. It reminded her of "cases" the younger girls at the Convent +got up on older girls, who were in turn expected to act toward their +satellites as guide, philosopher, and friend. Joan had always been very +nice to her satellites. This one should come to no harm through her. +Indeed, she intended that he should come ultimately to much good, for +she really liked him. But this first tongue-tied stage of his admiration +was a little trying to both, and she was relieved when the Darcy house +came into view. + +Not until then, with their parting imminent, did he summon up sufficient +ease to tell her of his recent stroke of fortune. She received it +pleasantly, as a teacher listens to tales of prowess on the part of a +pupil. + +"Sales-manager!--isn't that nice, Mr. Blair? I must get my step-mother +to try some of that polish of yours. She loves things to glisten. And +you'll have a lot more money, won't you? Splendid! So now," she +suggested, as Ellen had suggested, "you'll probably be moving somewhere +else." + +She had her eye on him, though, for it may be remembered that Joan had a +theory of her own as to why this up-and-coming young man continued to +live in an attic in the slums. + +He shook his head. "I'll stay in the old place. Even if I hadn't lived +there ever since I can remember, I think I'd stay anyway." + +"Why?" asked Joan, walking more slowly. + +"Well, there's something sort of homey about it. I've got a fireplace in +my room, you see, and I like the little panes in the windows, and the +big sills--they're just as good as tables--And that funny old twisty +staircase. Sometimes at night when everybody in the house is asleep you +can hear the steps creaking, as if people were coming up and down. I +like that. And the old tree outside taps on the roof as if it were +saying, 'Here I am, kid. Go on to sleep!'"--He broke off apologetically. +"You'll think me a nut, Miss Darcy, talking like this! But you see +everything that's ever happened to me happened in that room, and I feel +as if--well, as if I weren't exactly alone in it." + +Joan nodded, her eyes bright with understanding. She had not expected +him to share her feeling for the old house, or to be so sensitive to the +influence of environment. She walked still slower. It was too bad their +talk should come to an end just as it was showing signs of life. + +"Were you born there?" she asked craftily. + +"Oh, no. No, I don't know just where I was born. On the road, I reckon. +You see my mother was an actress--" + +But despite her lagging feet they were by this time at the Darcy door, +which was promptly opened by an attentive parlor maid. + +"I'm so sorry I can't ask you in," said Joan. + +"No, indeed!--I didn't expect that," answered humble Archie. + +Joan frowned. It may be recalled that humility was one of her dislikes. + +"It's just that I happen to have an engagement for the evening," she +explained; for in Louisville fashion she portioned out her free nights +among certain admirers who are known in the vernacular as "fireside +companions"--gentlemen who for reasons of poverty, or thrift, or +especial devotion, do not offer the ladies of their choice any other +form of entertainment than their company. Only on Sunday afternoons are +the youth of a Southern city free to call unheralded and _en masse_ on +girls with any pretensions to popularity. + +Joan explained this custom to Archibald, remarking with an encouraging +smile, "So you see if you really want to talk to a girl alone, your only +chance is to engage an evening in advance." + +"I see," said Archie. + +And not until the door had closed behind her did he suddenly smite +himself upon the brow, ejaculating, "Dumbhead! Boob! Ivory above the +neck, pure, solid ivory!" + +For it penetrated to him that out of the kindness of her heart his lady +had made for him an opening, an opportunity, which would certainly never +occur again. + +"The fact is," he muttered, turning away from that closed door, "I'm +about as well fitted for society as Balaam's ass!" + +An opinion in which at the moment Miss Darcy would have thoroughly +concurred. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +Relations between them might have ended then and there, for Joan was not +in the habit of casting her pearls before swine, and the confidence was +rather crushed out of Archibald by a realization of his gross stupidity. + +But Effie May was as persistent in her fancies as in other matters. + +"Where's the eary one?" she asked Joan one Sunday afternoon following +the usual influx of visitors. "He hasn't been around since I don't know +when." + +"How should I know? Probably towing some lady-typist by her elbow to a +church social," replied Joan, yawning. + +"You may be sure it's a _lady_ typist, then, and not the other sort," +commented her step-mother. "I like that boy!" + +"You seem to," murmured Joan, reflecting idly that it was a compliment +Mr. Blair did not appear to return; which had been one of the few things +in common between them. + +But later Effie May had something to say on the subject that interested +her more. She said it to her husband in Joan's hearing. + +"You remember that young chap we had at the Horse show one night, whom +Joan met on the train? Name of Blair?" + +"Certainly, my love. An agreeable fellow, though not quite, I should +say, to the manner born? However, he had a respect for his elders quite +unusual nowadays," said the Major affably, recalling his personal +success with the young man. "And a keen sense of humor, as I recall, +very keen!" + +That, as it happened, was one thing Archibald did not possess. He had in +its place a hearty laugh, a passion for "jokes," and a generous +appreciation of jesting intentions on the part of others, which +doubtless served him quite as well. + +"That's the chap. Well, some of the boys who were here this afternoon +were telling me that he's quite a scrapper. Seems some of the young +sports about town have been putting the gloves on with him, down to the +Y. M. C. A.--Johnny Carmichael and that lot--and the other night they +got up a match between him and a regular pug, just to see how good he +was. Seems he stood up to him three rounds, and come out of it with his +nose a pulp and his front teeth gone, askin' for more!" + +"Heavens!" murmured Joan. "Those infantile front teeth?" + +"Oh, I guess they stuck 'em in again," said Effie May, "but I sure would +have liked to see that match! The boys were quite enthusiastic." + +"Did he win?" asked Joan. + +"Win?--against a professional? Lord, child, he was doin' well to stand +up to him one round, let alone three! It was Dan McCabe, Dick." + +"McCabe? You don't say," repeated the Major, highly interested. "Blair +must be pretty good, then!" + +In his younger days Richard Darcy had been something of a devotee of the +gloves himself, and still kept up an interest in ring affairs. Boxing, +he held, was one of the few exercises really becoming a gentleman; and +he had sometimes modestly called the attention of this decadent +golfing-generation to a figure any boy of them might well envy, as a +result of the sport of kings. + +Not latterly, however. Of the Major's more recent figure, the less said +the better. Even the mild exertions of the one-step caused him to +perspire and puff audibly, and he had requested that the cheval mirror +be removed from his dressing-room--a rather serious sign with Richard +Darcy. His wife in vain suggested riding, golf, massage. The Major +preferred the expedient of doing without his mirror. + +She had in mind this growing _embonpoint_ when she spoke of Archibald's +accomplishment--as well as several other matters, being a woman who +thought nothing of killing two and even three birds with one stone. + +"Dickie, I been thinking how nice it would be if you were to put on the +gloves with young Blair sometimes? I've always wanted to see you box." + +"Pooh," he murmured, flattered, however, by the suggestion. "I couldn't +interest him now. And before all those young whipper-snappers at the +gymnasium? I'd be a laughing-stock!" + +"Why not get him to come up here? Fix up a sort of gymnasium in the +attic?" + +"Oh, do!" urged Joan, who had been not a little troubled by the recent +change in her father. "It will be just what you need, Dad, and such fun! +I'm sure you could 'interest' him still." + +The Major's eye kindled a little. He was always responsive to any belief +in himself. "You think so, Dollykins? Well, possibly, possibly--But you +speak as if Blair were to be had for the asking, my love!" + +"Well, I think he is," remarked Effie May with a twinkle at her +step-daughter. "Depends upon who does the asking--What do you say, +Joan?" + +"It would have to be done in words of one syllable," murmured the girl +unkindly, "but I'll try." + +So that again Archibald had occasion to shake hands with Fate; and found +himself regularly every Saturday afternoon at four o'clock beneath the +roof of his One and Only, gently exercising her parent, with every +likelihood of tea to follow. + +Not that Archibald had any liking for tea. On the first occasion of his +accepting it, he had asked for four lumps of sugar in his cup, +explaining that plenty of sweetness took the worst of the taste away. +But he had firmly declined the Major's sympathetic suggestion to +substitute a highball, having his own quaint notions of the proprieties. +One of them was that no gentleman drinks liquor in the presence of a +lady. It was a genuine shock to him to find that Major Darcy did so, +freely: and what he felt when Mrs. Darcy joined her husband in the act, +he was fortunately able to dissemble. It merely confirmed an earlier +impression. + +Joan gave up riding on Saturday afternoons to stay at home and umpire +the boxing matches. She felt that her father ought to be encouraged. +Besides, it rather interested her to see her protégé in a new light. +Once stripped to the waist and gloved--(she soon got used to the sight +of her father in a pink silk undershirt and Archibald in no shirt at +all), the young man lost all his awkwardness and shyness and appeared +quite a different person, confident, masterly. + +"Look out, Major! I'm after your nose this time," he would smile. "Guard +yourself. Here's where I get it!" + +"Damned if you do!" the other would cry, feinting desperately, but +without avail. Archie always got it. + +At first the girl gasped with alarm whenever his glove plopped into +smart contact with her father's face or body; but she soon saw that only +the skill of the younger man went into these blows, never his strength. +Richard Darcy saw it too, and was mortified. + +"You're playing off on me, damn your young hide!" he would pant. "You +wait--I'll show you yet, I'll show you yet!" + +And when on one proud occasion he did "show him," to the extent of +bringing an unexpected trickle of blood from Archie's nose, Joan let out +a cheer of triumph--in which the victim joined with a will. + +"Bully!" he cried. "That was a sockdollager! Dare you to do it again, +Major! Doubledare you!" + +Seeing him so, the play of powerful muscles under skin as white as a +girl's, the joyous grin on his big, plain face, the sheer good-nature of +him, intent on giving an older man what he called a "run for his money," +and yet as controlledly gentle with him as a great dog playing with a +child, Joan began to understand why Johnny Carmichael and his friends +were enthusiastic over Archie Blair. He was that rarest of finds, a good +playfellow. + +The companionship of men with men was something she suddenly envied. Why +couldn't women put on gloves and knock some of the pettiness out of each +other, the small spites and vanities and jealousies? She would very much +have enjoyed letting a little blood out of the nose of, say, Emily +Carmichael! In a perfectly friendly spirit, of course.... + +The boxing matches accomplished several results. They were extremely +good for the Major, reducing his waist by several inches and so +increasing his staying-powers that he could eat his way through dinner +from _hors d'oeuvre_ to _crème de menthe_ without losing breath. They +were good for Joan, giving her a new perspective on male human nature, +which since the episode of Eduard Desmond she had been in danger of +regarding rather cynically. And if they weren't altogether good for +Archie Blair--well, Archibald was a young man quite accustomed to taking +care of himself. + +He would have faced greater perils than he did for the privilege of +spending a glorious hour under the same roof with Miss Darcy--whom he +continued to call "Miss Darcy" even in his secret thoughts, though she +had lately formed the delightful habit of addressing him as "Archie." + +She had also presented him kindly with a small photograph of herself on +a post-card, taken for the purpose of showing Stefan Nikolai the furs he +had sent her, and incidentally the ringless condition of her left hand. +(It was her answer to his letter about the phagocytes.) + +Archie did not exhibit this treasure, even to his friend Ellen Neal, +regarding it in the nature of a sacred trust. He had made for it a frame +with a little door which locked, and which greatly intrigued the good +woman for several days; until she found that the back of it came off +quite easily. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +In their weekly chats over her tea-table (from which the Major early +excused himself, possibly under wifely suggestion), Joan got into the +way of being quite confidential with Archibald. She told him one day how +lonely she was for women's companionship. + +"At school I had too many chums, and here I haven't any," she +complained. "I really don't know why!" + +"Maybe they're sort of jealous," was his suggestion. + +"Why, Archie! You're getting positively subtle with your compliments," +she laughed. "No, it can't be that. I'm no 'man's woman!'--I'm done with +that forever! They're welcome to every beau in town for all of me, and I +_never_ flirt with other people's property. I'm really the ideal +companion nowadays--no family complete without me.... Of course I see a +lot of girls around at parties, and they're friendly enough, even make +rather a fuss over me. But--that's all! Somehow we don't seem to be +playing the same game." + +"Ish ga bibble," murmured Archie, consolingly if cryptically. "What do +_you_ care, when you've got 'em all nailed to the mast? But I know just +what you mean, Miss Darcy. Used to feel sort of that way myself when I +went with Miss Gracie or Miss Ella, or any of them from the office. +Before I knew your sort." + +"So you think," said Joan, amused, "it's the sort that's wrong, not me?" + +"Nothing wrong with _you_!" he declared, with a comforting finality. + +Being a person with whom sympathy was always active rather than passive, +however, he took her case earnestly under consideration; with rather +surprising results. + +Some days later--it was one of the still February mornings that come to +Kentucky as an earnest that spring is on the way, with cardinals fluting +from the evergreens and a rusty bluebird or two on the lookout for +summer quarters--Joan was called to the telephone to speak to no less a +personage than Miss Emily Carmichael. + +"I hear you've been riding all winter, Miss Darcy," she said. "I'm so +sorry not to have known it before, so that we might have gone out +together. So much pleasanter than riding with a groom, don't you think!" + +Joan agreed that it would have been. + +"Why shouldn't we make up for lost time at once--this morning, for +instance? Shall I come by for you at eleven o'clock? Very well." + +Joan hung up the telephone, mortified by her own pusillanimous behavior. +Here was a golden opportunity to snub the girl who had found her +"mixed," and instead of doing so she had meekly consented to be +patronized. But at the word her head went up with something of the +Major's dignity. Miss Carmichael would find it rather difficult to +patronize Miss Darcy! + +Miss Carmichael, however, seemed to have no intention of trying. She +exclaimed with delight over the pretty Peggy, sleek as satin despite her +winter coat, and dancing with pleasure to be out once more in equine +society. (With the first approach of winter, the class in equestrianism +had disbanded). + +"Mr. Blair was telling me the other day about your father's wonderful +Christmas present to you," she said. "It must be pleasant to be able to +afford a real saddle-horse! My good old Dobbin has to pull Mother's +station-wagon, too, you know, which is bad for his gaits. It's _horrid_ +to have only one horse in the stables!" + +"You speak as if you were poverty-stricken," smiled Joan, thinking of +the great Carmichael house, with its walled court and double galleries +and outbuildings sufficient to house a retinue of servants. + +"Oh, we are," sighed the other. "Absolutely! Why, do you know, I've +never been to Europe in my life?" + +Joan wondered what this girl would think of real poverty, which yearned +in terms, not of trips to Europe, but of new shoes and unattainable +spring bonnets!--And then she happened to notice, standing at the curb +as they passed, a girl of about her age with a shawl over her head, a +baby on one arm and a child dragging at the other, gazing listlessly at +the fortunate ones who had time to be young. + +Joan hastily abandoned comparisons. + +"If you've only one horse, what does your groom ride?" she asked, having +been rather impressed by the mention of a groom. + +"A bicycle," smiled Emily. "Of course he's not a real groom, only our +houseboy, Joe. It's terribly mortifying to his pride. 'Miss Em'ly, +s'posin' we was to meet some one what knows us?' is his constant plea; +so I ride in out-of-the-way roads to spare his feelings. If we do meet +acquaintances, he drops far behind and pretends he isn't with me. When +old Dob feels his oats, poor Joe has a fearful time keeping up. I hear +him panting and gasping behind me, 'Woa thar, woa thar, Dobbin! Gawd +sakes, Miss Em'ly, don' you know a bicycle wa'n't never _meant_ to +gallop?'" + +Joan was both astonished and amused. She could not fit the picture into +her conception of the Carmichael elegance. "_I_ shouldn't bother with a +groom at all," she murmured. + +"Of course you wouldn't! But you see I've got old-fashioned parents who +can't imagine a young girl being able to go about alone in safety. They +suspect a bandit of lurking behind every bush for the purpose of +carrying off their precious Emily. So far no bandit has had the courage +to attempt it!" she sighed. "Do you know, what I envy you most is your +independence?" + +"My independence? But that's just what I wish I had!" cried Joan, and +presently found herself confiding in this stranger something that she +had hitherto kept to herself--her determination to earn her own living. + +The other girl listened with sympathy, too well-bred to ask questions, +but quick to understand. + +"It doesn't seem fair," she sighed. "We girls haven't a chance at all. +If you were a boy you would have been prepared in some way, of course. +In our family, for instance, my brother Johnny, who isn't half as +intelligent as I am (and that's not bragging, either), was put most +unwillingly through college, and given three extra years at law, and +sent around the world--all to prepare him for a career of horse-racing +and wild oats generally. He's a dear, you know, but he must have his +little wild oats.... And what did I get? Two years of an Eastern +finishing school, where I learned to dress better than we can afford, to +sing and play a little, and to speak French with a fair accent! I wasn't +even prepared for--the thing that's expected of us," she added, +flushing. "I've never cooked a meal nor made a bed in my life, Mother +proceeding on the theory that if you learn how to do such things you'll +have to do them--No fear! No sensible, practical, poor young man would +ever have the courage to ask such a useless thing as me to share his +humble lot!" + +Joan looked at her curiously. She was a tall, rather statuesque type, as +so many Kentucky women are; not beautiful, but with a splendid figure, a +gallant poise of the head, an air of race and elegance that associated +oddly with the idea of cooking and bedmaking. + +"You'll simply have to choose the sort of husband that hasn't a humble +lot," Joan suggested. + +"Choose?" the other shrugged. "Where am I to find him? Not in this part +of the world, evidently. You see I've been out several years, my dear. +And Mother's far too well-bred to take me about husband hunting, even if +she were able to afford it--No, no, I shall simply subside gracefully +into old maidhood, as so many of us do nowadays. Haven't you noticed the +numbers of old maids about here--charming, cultivated women who have +waited too long for a possible partner to come and discover them? +Filling their lives with Bridge and charity and committee work! Useful, +I suppose, and contented enough, but--It isn't what one dreams of! Mere +_pis aller_.... And I don't see how the ballot's going to help, do you?" + +"Except by changing the fashion in female education," mused Joan. +"Meanwhile we've just got to help ourselves. Pull ourselves up by our +own boot-straps." + +"And we haven't even got the boot-straps!" laughed the other, +ruefully.... + +This was not the last of their rides together. The unexpected +understanding of this girl, whose lot in life Joan had long secretly +envied, broke down the artificial barriers between them, and paved the +way for a real and lasting friendship. Between them they settled many +problems of the universe, while Dobbin and Pegasus respectively trotted +and singlefooted about the parks or along a road where the Ohio swept, +swollen with the winter's snows, almost on a level with them, overlooked +by splendid cliffs where the city's rich have been wise enough to build +homes that would do credit to the château country of France. + +Sometimes Emily took her into one of these houses for a cup of tea, +occasions which filled Effie May with a candid gratification; for +hitherto the Carmichael circle had remained impregnable to her siege. + +"It certainly was a good idea of yours, getting the child that horse!" +she commented to her husband. "There's something genteel about a +riding-horse--more so than a limousine, though I'm sure I can't see why. +Heaven knows it's cheaper! But even that old plug the Carmichael girl +rides has a kind of air about it." + +"Horses," replied the Major sententiously, "are the only aristocrats +left in the modern world." + +Effie May presently suggested to Archie that he purchase himself a horse +and try riding, since he was so fond of exercise. But Archie put the +tempting idea away from him. What time had he for the diversions of the +idle? Business before pleasure! He had recently, and for reasons that +were a little vague in his own mind, decided to become rich. + +Joan was so preoccupied with her new friendship that she had rather +neglected the boxing matches of late, which presently languished. The +Major missed the stimulating presence of a young feminine audience. So +that Archie spent no more glorious half-hours over a tea-table. + +But he did not complain. It was something to know that he had presented +his lady with the thing her heart most craved. He could, had he so +chosen, have tagged the unconscious Miss Carmichael with a card such as +sometimes came to Joan in modest boxes of flowers, bearing the +inscription: "From a Friend." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +Miss Carmichael presently invited Joan to a meeting of an organization +which she had occasionally referred to as "The Jabberwocks" though it +had been christened by a more imposing name; a group of girls and young +married women who met fortnightly for the apparent purpose of talking +all at once about anything that came into their heads. And as a great +deal came into their heads, the bewildered guest decided that its +present name was aptly chosen. However, though the talk, disconnected +and inconclusive, came out for the most part "at that same door wherein +it went," it was to Joan like hearing a native tongue spoken in a +foreign land. She listened eagerly. Ideas came up for discussion, books, +plays, music, even politics, had a turn; instead of the usual, "Who is +asked to So-and-so's dinner?" and "What are you going to wear at +such-and-such an affair?" which she had begun to consider the chronic +conversation of her sex and age. + +Yet the Jabberwocks were by no means bluestockings (a class of persons +which Joan held in some dread). They frequently were invited to +So-and-so's dinner, and usually managed to appear extremely well-clad at +such-and-such an affair; and the passion they evinced for bon-bons and +weak tea would alone have protected them from the charge of +over-seriousness. + +Joan, after politely maintaining silence till she could bear it no more, +presently burst into a certain discussion with an apt quotation on the +subject from Stefan Nikolai. She was unprepared for the respectful +silence that greeted her remark. + +"You say," murmured somebody, "that Stefan Nikolai told you that? You +know him, then, Miss Darcy?" + +"Oh, yes. Very well indeed." + +"How perfectly wonderful!" sighed the Jabberwocks. + +"You see," explained Emily, "we've been studying him all winter. Oh, if +we'd only known about you earlier!" + +Joan laughed. It had not occurred to her that her friend was a person +people met in solemn conclave to "study." (Why it should be that +personal acquaintance with a celebrity invariably dims his luster to the +affectionate eye is a puzzle which may be left to the psychologists.) + +"Do tell us what he looks like!" demanded the Jabberwocks in unison. "Is +he handsome?" (From which it may be gathered that the club did not +devote itself to things intellectual, exclusively.) + +"Why, yes--yes, I suppose he is," said Joan, pausing to reflect. "He's +distinguished-looking, quite foreign, you know; with very expressive +eyes and a fine, sensitive sort of face. He's not like our men +exactly--and yet he doesn't look Jewish. You know his mother was a +Christian. But his father was born in the Ghetto, somewhere in Russia, +and Stefan actually worked in a sweat-shop when he first came to this +country.--He was the son of a rabbi, though." + +"They always are," murmured Emily _en passant_. "Rabbis always seem to +have such large families. Rabbis and rabbits--did you ever notice?" + +The Jabberwocks sprung upon her tooth and nail. "Don't be coarse!" "Yes, +Em, it's really too bad of you!--you're always spoiling things with your +sarcasm." "Do go on, Miss Darcy!--It's so romantic." + +One little placid-faced girl, stitching on a baby-dress, said quietly, +"We ought to be nicer to Jews than we are, I think, girls. They're +really wonderful!--so clever, you know." + +"Yes," agreed Joan, "they are rather wonderful. There seems to be an +intellectual force about them, a curious inner fire, that nothing can +dampen, not even sweat-shops--I sometimes wish I were a Jew myself." + +They stared at her in utter astonishment. "Wish you were a Jew? Why, +Miss Darcy! Haven't you any prejudice against them at all?" + +"Prejudice--against a race of several billion people?" Joan was +astonished in her turn. A singularly tolerant mother, and later, life in +a little conventual world which had its own standards and viewpoints, +had sheltered her from much of the contagion of current opinion. "That +_would_ be a large order!" she smiled. "No, I can't seem to do my +prejudicing in wholesale lots. But of course I have seen Jews one could +cheerfully do without--the oily sort. And Christians too--haven't you?" +She dismissed the subject with a shrug. "Since you're so interested in +Stefan Nikolai, I wonder if you'd like to hear a letter from him. +There's one in my muff that the postman brought just as I started." + +The Jabberwocks were enchanted. + +"You won't mind if it's quite personal? They sometimes are." + +"So much the better!..." + +It seemed to be distinctly personal, as Joan realized after she had got +well into it. Mr. Nikolai wrote to thank her for the little picture of +the furs and the ringless hand. + + The fox who rendered up his life to furnish forth a tippet + would cry, "O death, where is thy sting?" if he could see + himself now!--By the way, what color have your eyes become? Do + they still match my aquamarine, or must it be gray sapphires + the next time? + +("Dear me," murmured Joan, "perhaps I'd better skip!" + +"Not a word!" breathed the Jabberwocks, sitting forward.) + +She read manfully on, wondering what had come over her friend to make +him so particularly--well, personal was the word. The ringless hand +seemed especially to take his fancy. He referred to it several times, +and Joan could not well explain these references to her audience. She +left them to draw their own conclusions; which they did, with some +exchanging of glances. + +There was an audible breath after she had finished. Emily Carmichael +voiced the Jabberwocks when she asked casually, "Did you say he was +young, Joan?" + +"Oh, dear, no! Quite old. Forty or fifty, or thereabouts. An uncle-ish +sort of person." + +"Goodness," murmured somebody. "Fancy having an uncle like that!..." + +Joan was asked to meetings of the club again. In fact, she was shortly +invited to become a Jabberwock herself, having, without quite realizing +why, been promoted from the rank of mere débutante to that of +Interesting Person. In this way she came into contact with a phase of +Louisville society strange to her father, strange even to the Misses +Darcy, expert as they were in the ways of the best people. She learned +that lately many little groups such as this club had come into +existence, formed of women who had grown tired of more superficial forms +of amusement, and had come together in the vague pursuit of something +better. + +"Do you know, I think we're rather in a transition state nowadays," +explained Emily Carmichael. "It's as if we were waiting for something +real to happen, marking time. The town's growing up, just as people grow +up, and getting tired of childish games--Of course there's always been +plenty of intellectual life here, as there is in most old Southern +places where people have had leisure for books. We've even produced our +share of literature." + +(Joan nodded, recalling her poet at the Country Club, and remembering +several names which are usually associated less with Louisville than +with the world of letters.) + +"But heretofore the intellectual people have been privileged characters, +set apart and labeled, and expected to be a little odd about their +clothes and hair--_you_ know! It's only lately that we ordinary folk +have concerned ourselves with--well, culture, I suppose it is, though +one hates the word! And there is something almost pathetic in the way we +herd together to pursue it, as if to give each other countenance!" + +"Not half as pathetic as trying to pursue it alone," said Joan, who +knew. + +"Anyway, it's distinctly smart nowadays to read and have opinions and +know something, even in our most frivolous circles--thank heaven!" + +"'Business of being a high-brow,' as Archie Blair would say," smiled +Joan. + +"Oh, Archie Blair! Isn't he absurd?" + +Joan suddenly found herself on the defensive. It was all well enough for +her to laugh at her protégé, but she did not intend to extend the +privilege to others. + +"I like him very much," she said, with decision. "He's honest and nice. +I believe I like him better than any man I know." + +"So do I," said Emily Carmichael unexpectedly. "But that doesn't keep +him from being funny!--Do you know, Joan, often as we have him to +dinner, and promptly as he pays his party-calls (who taught him that, I +wonder?) he has never once set foot in this house just casually, of his +own accord! I believe he thinks it wouldn't be 'respectful' of him. And +yet I don't seem to awe him particularly, and it certainly isn't +Mother's lorgnon--he positively teases her, and she likes it! The big +house and that sort of thing wouldn't impress him--he's not enough of a +snob. And yet he will not come to see me. Queer, isn't it?" + +Joan admitted the queerness, though she was conscious of a slight +feeling of gratification. She believed she understood, having once heard +Archibald express rather forcibly his opinion of the sort of man who +"went with" more than one girl at a time. While he could hardly be said +to be "going with" herself, he had made little concealment of the fact +that he was entirely at her disposal. She liked him the better for not +being at Emily's as well. + +"So you've been having him to dinner?" she murmured. "He never told me +that!" + +"Oh, no, he wouldn't. Haven't you noticed that for all his artlessness, +he never really does tell much about himself? Or about anything else! +That's one reason he's so popular with Johnny and all of them, I think. +He's a sort of confidential agent to the crowd. I know that when Father +can't find Johnny sometimes" (she blushed, and Joan nodded +sympathetically) "he always calls up Archie Blair, who presently +produces him. Sometimes he doesn't bring him home for several days, and +telephones that he's got him at his rooms--recuperating, I suppose. +Johnny swears by him, of course. I've heard of the wonderful Archie for +years, but never saw him until that night at your ball.... It was +splendid of you to have him there, Joan!--one of the things that made me +want to know you better." + +Joan waived this compliment. One would suppose him Emily's discovery +instead of her own! + +"How did your brother happen to know him?" + +"Oh, boys always know each other--they're so much more democratic than +girls. Horrid little snips we used to be, remember?--turning up our +noses at any other children who didn't go to dancing school?" + +"I did not go to dancing school myself," remarked Joan quietly. "My +mother taught me." + +"Then your mother must have been Queen of the Fairies!" said her friend, +rather prettily. "Johnny and Archie first met, I believe, upon the field +of battle. There used to be a continuous warfare on in this neighborhood +between what were known as the Alley Gang and the Av'noo Kids. We +expected Johnny to be brought in any day a mangled corpse--he being the +leader of the Av'noo Kids. One day the Alley Gang caught him and his +cohorts rather depleted as to numbers, and were naturally engaged in +wiping them off the face of the earth, when the paper-boy came up on his +wheel. With a whoop he dropped wheel and papers and joined in the fray. +The Alley Gang were getting the worst of it when policemen arrived--it +seems some windows had been smashed. The other boys scattered, but the +rescuer dared not desert his papers and so got caught; and Johnny came +panting home to get Father to bail him out of jail. That's the first we +heard of Archie Blair." + +"Odd that he didn't side with the Alley Gang, wasn't it?" commented +Joan. + +"Why, don't you see?--the Av'noo Kids were getting the worst of it. +That's Archie!..." + +Joan decided to be a little kinder to her protégé the next time she saw +him. It is an odd fact that we frequently do not appreciate our +possessions until others appear to value them unduly. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +Their next meeting occurred at the Carmichael house at dinner. Emily, +with the approach of the Easter season, had one day announced her +intention of giving a dinner in Joan's honor, greatly to the younger +girl's pleasure. It meant that she had won not only the friendship of +Emily, but that of her mother as well; a rather more difficult feat. + +Major Darcy was equally pleased with this compliment, which he +characteristically accepted for himself. + +"It is very gratifying to have old friends take one's child to their +hearts in this fashion--very gratifying! There are no better people in +the State than the Carmichaels, my dear. It is true that I have seen +less of the Judge than I could have wished since my return--we were +school-boys together. But I felt that soon or late there was bound to be +some recognition. A fine fellow, and a most able lawyer! Yes, yes. And +his wife--charming, charming! Though a trifle stiff for my fancy. A +_little_ more suavity of manner. She was a Dillingham, you know. Her +father represented us at one time at the Court of St. James." + +"Oh! Is that why she's so airy?" commented Effie May. "Well, I don't +mind airs if people have got a right to 'em, and nobody needs call on me +who don't want to. I'm real glad you're getting in with that crowd, +Joan. They're better than most 'old families'--they're still alive and +kicking and right at the top. And you've done it all by yourself, too! +Parties don't seem to do no good with their kind.... That's what comes +of being born a lady yourself." + +Something both wistful and generous in this speech touched the girl. + +"I had forgotten Mrs. Carmichael has not called on you, Effie May," she +said quickly. "Of course that makes it impossible for me to accept their +invitation. I'll tell Emily." + +And neither the Major's hasty reassurances or her step-mother's +remonstrances sufficed to alter her decision. She declined Emily's +invitation, and told her why. + +"You're quite right, and Mother'd be the first person to tell you so," +said Emily in instant approval. "I'll see what I can do. You know--" she +hesitated--"it isn't that there's any _reason_ for her not to call. Of +course everybody knows who your father is, and he's perfectly +delightful, too! It's just--" + +"I understand," said Joan quietly. + +Emily put an arm around her. "My dear, I hope you do--This is such a +small puddle that the big frogs in it take themselves rather seriously. +And it's changing lately. It used to be that in the South money or the +lack of it meant almost nothing at all. Now it means a great deal--more, +I fancy, than in places where there's more of it. It doesn't seem to +take even one generation to make a gentleman nowadays--or what passes +for a gentleman. And so the old guard feel that they have to be +especially wary, to make a decided stand, in order to retain their own +identity. They're horribly afraid of being--not exterminated exactly, +but--" + +"Mixed?" suggested Joan. "I remember you called me 'mixed' the first +time you deigned to notice me." + +"Not the first time--the second," laughed Emily, blushing. "The first +time was on the train, and you had flowers and a box of candy, and I +hadn't.--The second time you were such a haughty little minx, with your +Eastern airs and your lovely clothes, and so utterly unaware of my +provincial existence, that I simply _had_ to snub you somehow!" + +"Well!" gasped Joan. "That is exactly the way I felt about you!" + +"And there we were bristling our hackles at each other like two strange +puppy dogs, each waiting for the other to wag a tail. Anyway, I wagged +first!" cried Emily, kissing her friend. "And I'm not going to lose you +now, simply because my family hasn't been polite to your family." + +"You couldn't!" said Joan rather shyly, kissing her in return.... + +As a result of this understanding, some days later the cards of both +Judge and Mrs. Jonathan Carmichael appeared on the Darcy hall table +(from which they were not removed until gray with age and exposure); to +be followed by an even more unequivocal bit of pasteboard which informed +Mrs. and Miss Darcy that Mrs. Carmichael would be at home on a certain +afternoon in April from four until six. + +Effie May's innocent joy in this trophy, and the frequency with which it +figured in subsequent conversations, filled Joan with a combination of +embarrassment and satisfaction. She felt that she had at last done +something to repay, in part, the obligation she owed to her father's +wife.... + +She was not surprised to find Archibald at Emily's dinner. It was the +first time she had seen him under quite such a strong social light, +however, and she was a little nervous as to what the evening might bring +forth. "The Sign of the Dirty Spoon," did not sound like the most +reliable school of table manners. + +He sat opposite her, between Emily and a débutante of the type that +makes conversation an act of supererogation, and she was able without +seeming to do so to keep her protégé under a watchful eye. + +But to her relief he neither swallowed his spoon nor grasped his fork +with undue firmness, and seemed not at all perturbed by the variety of +the silver implements beside his plate. Joan was quite mystified by his +prowess; until she happened to notice that Emily also had him under a +watchful eye. With each course Emily promptly and ostentatiously +selected the proper implement, and Archie, after one glance out of the +corner of an eye, followed suit. It was perhaps fortunate that Emily was +his leader instead of the more impish Joan, who would have been impelled +by sheer force of circumstance to attempt her fish with her coffee +spoon. + +What surprised her even more than Archibald's table manners was his +conversation; a flow, a positive torrent, which poured on in a constant +stream, pausing only for the extreme exigencies of mastication, and not +always then. In the intervals of her own talk, Joan caught occasional +bits of this monologue. During the soup course it apparently concerned +itself with the South American armadillo, habits and habitat. During the +dessert it still appeared to linger about the armadillo. + +Now and then Emily cast a puzzled glance across at Joan, and the +débutante on his other side had long since been reduced to "Oh, really?" +and "I can hardly believe that!" But the armadillo went on and on. + +Joan had not suspected him of a concealed passion for natural history. +She could hardly wait for dinner to be over to investigate this new +development. But she had to call him to her side in so many words before +he ventured to join her. His eyes had been upon her most of the evening, +removing themselves hastily whenever they caught hers; but he did not +wish to intrude. It was quite sufficient for him to be in the same room +with her. + +She began at once, "Why and whence the armadillo, Archie? You sounded +like a University Extension lecture!" + +"Did I?" he grinned. "Was it all right? There were some things I forgot +to tell 'em. About the--" + +"Never mind!" said Joan hastily. "What I want to know is how you came by +the armadillo, anyway?" + +"I'm taking a correspondence course," he confessed. + +"In--in armadillos?" + +"No, in conversation," he said seriously. "Subjects of General +Discussion Suitable for Social Gatherings. I thought, seeing as I'm +going out in society so much these days, I ought to work up a different +line of talk than a fellow needs in business. The sort of things _you_ +like, you know--not learned, exactly, but sort of high-brow.--Books and +all.--They send us out a subject once a week. 'All about the North Pole' +it was once. 'The Infant in Portraiture,' another time. Last week it was +'The Armadillo and Its Ways.' Great scheme, ain't it?" + +"Stupendous!" murmured Joan. "But, Archie, suppose you meet a +fellow-student at some--er, social gathering who happens to be pursuing +the same line of cultivation? Mightn't that be rather embarrassing?" + +"Give me away, you mean? What's the dif? I would give him away, too, and +we'd have something to talk about! Anyway, to know all about something's +a mighty fine idea, even if you don't get a chance to tell folks." + +Joan did not smile. She realized that here, manifesting itself no matter +how uncouthly, was the true spirit of research, a thing which she +respected above all other impulses of the human brain. + +She said softly, "Keep on with your correspondence course by all +means!--only, Archie, don't talk about it to other people, will you? +They might not understand." + +He gave her a quick little grin of comprehension. "Not on your life! It +don't pay to wise people up to what a boob you are.--Except you. I guess +you know, anyway!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +Joan, in yielding to family pressure temporarily, had by no means given +up the idea of what she had learned recently to call her economic +independence--a subject discussed frequently, if not very fruitfully, by +her friends the Jabberwocks, who preached rather more radically than +they practiced. + +"You see," as they explained when reproached by Joan with inconsistency, +"we believe in that sort of thing, of course! but it isn't as if we +really _needed_ it." (Which was likewise the Jabberwockian attitude +toward suffrage.) + +Joan, however, not only believed in economic independence, but needed +it--as she reminded herself at gradually increasing intervals. She was +in danger, and knew it, of going over to Mammon. She had found it far +easier than she expected to live along from moment to moment, accepting +life as it came, enjoying the surface without questioning the depths. +The habit of mere material luxury is an insidious thing that fastens +upon one unaware; and Joan had all her father's taste for the good +things of life. + +She had begun to form many little extravagant ways, such, for instance, +as wearing silk stockings under her heaviest shoes, using a towel only +once before casting it aside, having her hair shampooed down town when +she was perfectly able to do it herself in her own bathroom. Not very +reckless extravagances, perhaps, from the point of view of her new +friends; but the sort of thing which the Misses Darcy observed with +something like awe. + +"I often think that if dear papa had been able to allow _us_ to be less +careful--"; sighed Miss Virginia. "But of course in our day a silk +stocking was a silk stocking." + +"Indeed it was! Do you remember the lovely pair Aunt Sara Miggs brought +from abroad when she made the grand tour? White they were, Joan; and +when they began to get a little yellow with washing, she gave them to +me; and when I'd had plenty of use out of them, they were dipped pink +for Sister Euphie; and by the time Sister Virgie got them they had +become black." + +"With age?" asked Joan, rather startled. + +"Oh, no, dear. With dye." + +"Where are the stockings of yester-year?" murmured the girl. "You can't +buy good old family standbys like that nowadays, not at any price. +Nothing but these miserable sleazy affairs that run if you look at +them--the cowards!" + +The Darcy ladies exchanged puzzled glances. + +"Cowards--stockings?" repeated Miss Iphigenia. "I'm afraid I don't quite +see the connection--" + +"There isn't any--don't mind me! And really it's quite a distinction to +wear cotton ones nowadays," hurriedly said Joan, who hoped sincerely +never to possess a cotton stocking again in all her life. And at the +same time planned to earn her own living in any honest fashion +available, no matter how lowly! Inconsistency was not a fault with which +she had the right to twit her fellow Jabberwocks.... + +But she never quite forgot her destination in the pleasures of the +wayside. She did a good deal of quiet investigating, in a desultory way. +Teachers, librarians, bookkeepers, stenographers, all came under the +head of skilled labor, as she soon discovered, and required a course of +training--which Joan's step-mother would have to provide. It put these +professions out of the question. + +There were various small establishments in Louisville conducted by +acquaintances of hers, those "ladies in reduced circumstances" of which +every Southern town is full; tea-rooms, hat-shops, lingerie-shops, and +the like--a state of affairs which gave Major Darcy acute distress. + +"Imagine the daughters of my old friend Colonel Dinwiddie selling +bibelots to any vulgarian who has the effrontery to purchase them! What +can their brothers be thinking of?" he would groan. "Of course you will +be careful never to enter the shop, my dears! The poor ladies shall not +be embarrassed by having to wait on _my_ wife and daughter, at least." + +But aside from her father's peculiar but not unique point of view, these +ventures required capital; which again put them out of the question. + +She heard now and then of certain well-paid positions in connection with +social service of various sorts; but these again seemed to require a +special training, or a special aptitude, which Joan did not believe +herself to possess. The very words "social service" had to her a +chilling, impersonal, busybodyish sound, almost as ugly as +"philanthropy." She was not of those to whom a rose by any other name +would smell as sweet. "Charity" sounded to her Christian, and warm, and +friendly; but she dreaded to offer "philanthropy," or "social service" +to the unfortunate almost as much as she would have dreaded to receive +such things. She decided that her _metier_ was not good works. + +Clerks in stores, she learned, do not for the most part earn a living +wage. They are expected evidently to live at home, or to supplement +their salary in some other fashion (just how Joan was not sure, but she +entertained uneasy suspicions). By the time they become expert--heads of +departments, buyers, chief milliners, etc.,--they are of course more +than economically independent. But in the meanwhile.... + +It was the meanwhile that troubled Joan. When she broke with her family, +she intended to do so with a magnificent completeness. + +Only two alternatives seemed open to her inexperience; the stage and +journalism. She weighed them one against the other without being able to +come to a decision. Joan was rather fond of making her own decisions, +and had all the impatience of her nineteen years with mature advice. But +at length she consulted Stefan Nikolai. + +"Please write me by return mail," (she commanded), "which you think +would offer me the most advantageous career, the stage or journalism." + +He obeyed on a post-card marked Christiania (his postmarks were +frequently the only indication of his whereabouts): + +"I should suggest the usual course in matrimony as a preliminary to any +career." + +Joan stamped her foot over this banality. It was something she might +have expected from a man of her father's generation, but hardly from +Stefan Nikolai. Particularly when he knew about Eduard, and must +certainly realize that her interest in man as a sex was over! + +Useful she still found them as dancing partners, to be sure, as +providers of candy and flowers and theaters, even to a certain extent as +companions, since one cannot very well sit about after nightfall +conversing with women, if only for appearance' sake. One or two she +might admit to her friendship, provided they remain sufficiently "in +their place," like Archie Blair. But as lovers, husbands! Never again. +Fortunately, sufficient phagocytes had been released to take care of +that. + +Hers was an attitude of mind which if generally entertained would, she +realized, mitigate against the welfare of the race; but judging from the +people about her, it would never be generally entertained--particularly +in Kentucky, and in Springtime. + +It is a season when matters of pairing off that may have hung fire +throughout the winter are apt to come rapidly to a climax. Each Sunday +paper brings forth its batch of Spring engagements; and Joan herself was +under the pleasing necessity of chilling off two of her admirers in +quick succession. One was a youth of the fireside-companion type, who +innocently fancied that there might be room for one more under the +hospitable Darcy roof. The other was the blond young man who had been +Joan's first partner, and who, having danced her successfully through +the season, saw no reason why he should not dance her successfully +through life. + +They met with small mercy at her hands. "Off with his head!" murmured +Joan cheerily to herself on each occasion, thinking of a certain evening +under a beech-tree by the light of the gibbous moon.... + +These two unfortunates were not the only ones in her life who were to +suffer vicarious atonement for the sins of Eduard Desmond (and obscurely +of Richard Darcy as well). + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +It was in April that Archie Blair conceived the happy idea of purchasing +an automobile, thus combining business with pleasure most practically; a +modest secondhand affair of three good cylinders and one that missed, +but it shone (Archibald being in the paint and varnish business) with a +glossiness that advertised its owner afar off. And like the bicycle in +the song, it was "built for two." + +Archibald had no wish to intrude; still, an automobile is an automobile, +and it seemed to him that on a fine Spring evening almost any young lady +might like to ride in one, even if accustomed to limousines. + +Joan first became aware of this acquisition one fine day when it +appeared and reappeared and once again appeared passing the window where +she sat reading. Three times, like Hector about the walls of Troy, it +circled the block, smelling of its new paint and complaining loudly of +its missing cylinder; and at last Joan, puzzled by this persistence, +thought to glance at its driver. Clutching the wheel in a death grapple, +taking his eye from the traffic only long enough for a hopeful glance at +the house front as he passed, she recognized her friend in all the proud +modesty of ownership. + +Joan promptly put on a small hat and a large veil, and went out to take +a walk. + +"Miss Darcy! Say, Miss Darcy!" (Honk-honk--or rather Ooo-ooga-ooga!) +"Look who's here! Mine! Bought it myself!--I was just hoping I'd run +across you somewhere." + +"I trust you won't," murmured the lady. + +"Ha! Ha! Ha!" roared Archie, recognizing a jest. "Look out, or maybe I +will yet! Perhaps the safest place is inside," he suggested craftily, +and with some truth. Joan accepted the hint. + +"Learnt in three lessons!" proclaimed Archie, unable to resist the +temptation to brag a little. (An automobile of his own, all paid for, +and the One and Only beside him on its seat--who can blame the man?) +"Only got it last week, and if there's a part of little old Lizzie I +don't know about, it's because it isn't there, that's all! Of course I +can't take my eye off the road yet--" (this as a family party narrowly +escaped annihilation)--"but you won't mind my talking sort of over my +shoulder?" + +"I won't mind your talking any way at all--so long as it's not about +armadillos." + +Archie grinned. "Now you're joshing me!" + +"I never was more serious in my life. What's the subject this week?" + +But he declined to be drawn. "All that's just for social gatherings. +People don't have really to converse out-of-doors, do they?--Say, what +if we go out in the real country somewhere!--not parks, where there's +always so many things around, but a good straight empty road, where I +can step on her tail and let her rip--eh?" + +The idea seemed good to Joan. It was the sort of day when cities are an +abomination, and the soul of the veriest urbanite yearns to follow a +gipsy pateran. + +Once out of the complications of traffic, Archibald lost his caution, +and stepped on her tail and let her rip. The song of the birds, the +neigh of startled colts in the fields as they passed, the rush of the +golden air itself, all were lost in the roar of the willing little +engine. + +"Thirty-five, thirty-eight, forty-two--" chanted Archie with a proud eye +on the speedometer. "Go to it, Lizzie! Good old girl!" + +Joan had no fear. Somehow the car seemed safe in his big, powerful +hands--as safe as she was herself. Off came her hat, and the wind did +its pleasure with her hair. Rushing along so close to the ground, dust +in their faces, trees and meadows passing in long green streaks, she got +quite a different sense of motion from any she had known before. It was +a more personal thing, more of an individual effort, as if she and her +companion were really flying like birds, with the little car for wings. + +"Oh, don't stop! It's glorious!" she cried as he suddenly slowed down. + +He explained, quietly, that her hair was blowing in his eyes. + +"What a nuisance!" She tucked the offending strand into place. + +"I--didn't mind," said Archibald, in a rather queer voice. + +Joan, with a glance at his face, decided that they would have to be +turning back. But as she bade him good-by she said suddenly, "Teach me +how to run Lizzie myself some day, will you, Archie?" + +"You mean you'll go out with me again?" he demanded, radiant. + +"Of course," promised Joan, reckless with speed and the Spring air. +"Whenever you like!" + +Archibald tooled his Lizzie back to her shed with the air of Phoebus +driving the chariot of the sun. He warbled aloud, he wore his hat on one +ear, he presented a small darky, who helped him to groom and tend +Lizzie, with a silver dollar. + +But that night as he lay in bed, with an April rain making music on the +roof above him, he told himself soberly that he must be careful. There +had been moments to-day, especially with her hair blowing across his +face, when a fellow almost forgot!... He conjured himself by all his +gods to be a wise little ostrich and keep his head well tucked into the +sand. + +And Joan, listening to the same soft rain, so full of suggestion and +race memories and the call of the year, also reminded herself that she +would have to be careful. She thought of his humble, adoring, happy +eyes, and her heart smote her. This one was not quite as other men. To +hurt an Archibald was a trifle beneath one's dignity. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +The career of Lizzie (whose surname may perhaps be guessed by the +intelligent reader) was short, and her end untimely; but even so she +served her part in the inscrutable purposes of Fate. + +It came about in this wise. + +Archibald had formed quite a habit of calling for his lady, not only on +fine afternoons after five, but sometimes in the balmy spring nights +after dinner, when all the world meandered two by two, occupying the +benches in the little park opposite Joan's house, and filling the roads +with a streaming procession of motors and traps and buggies, of anything +that went on wheels; even perambulators. + +Joan rather enjoyed being part and parcel of this murmuring, meandering +community. She liked to feel in touch with the people about her, like +any Miss Gracie or Miss Ella with a beau--particularly when it cost no +effort. She had but to lend her company, and Archibald would do the +rest. He asked no more from her than her presence. + +Each time he came for her, Lizzie had acquired some new elegance; +dust-covers, a side-mirror, a voice that sounded like a Packard's, at +least. Not a car on the road exhibited brighter brasswork than hers. If +the chariot was not altogether worthy of the lady, it was through no +fault of Archie's. Lizzie, like her owner, strove to please. + +Sometimes, if they started in the afternoon, Effie May would insist upon +providing one of the little picnic lunches that were her +specialty.--"So's you won't have to come home till you get good and +ready," she explained, twinkling at Archie. It was perhaps a little +ungrateful of him not to meet her overtures half way, since it was +evident that she suspected his secret and was deliberately aiding and +abetting him. + +But Archie cared nothing for her aidings and abettings. Hope did not +enter into his calculations at all. He entertained no false illusions. +All he asked was to be allowed as much as possible of Joan's company, +for as long as she was willing to grant it. + +His present streak of luck could not last, he knew. Some fellow would +come along soon with a larger, finer car, or perhaps with a +saddle-horse, or a coach and four--at any rate with something more +suitable than he, Archie, had to offer. But meanwhile there was now; and +if she was never allowed to suspect the inner state of his feelings, the +glorious now might be prolonged indefinitely. Archibald was nothing if +not an opportunist. + +So he was very careful. And Joan was very careful. No more hair blew +into eyes. They remained matter-of-fact and chummy and impersonal, even +when they picknicked together under a twilight sky, one on either side +of a spread napkin, as if they had set up housekeeping together in the +wilderness--a situation which, as people know who are far less wise than +Effie May, is usually provocative of results. Nothing occurred, however: +until the day that marked the passing of Lizzie. + +They were on their way home in the gray of a late evening, Archibald +driving, with half an eye on the whiteness of certain hands as they +deftly stowed away the remains of tea in the picnic-box. Which may have +been the reason that when he came to a railroad crossing, he was less +careful than usual. + +It was a switching track on which a freight train stood, heavily +panting. Lizzie safely negotiated this, and was going on to a second +track beyond, when something jerked Archie's eyes around in time to gaze +full into the headlight of an approaching passenger train. He had not +enough speed on to cross the track ahead of it. He had too much to stop +where he was. + +"Gee!" he grunted; and with a powerful wrench of the wheel, turned into +the track just ahead of the rushing engine. + +Joan meant to scream, but forgot in sheer excitement. Behind sounded a +frantic grinding of brakes, a hiss of steam, and the locomotive let out +shriek after shriek. + +"Oh, I hear you!" muttered Archie. "I'll get out of your way the minute +I can, old top! None too soon to suit yours truly." + +He stared into his side-mirror. Down the ties pounded willing Lizzie at +thirty, forty, fifty--with a pop a tire blew out. + +"Get that door open," he shouted at Joan, above the hissing steam. +"Don't jump till I say the word. Trying to make a flat place. You hear?" + +Joan nodded. There were deep gullies on either side. She glanced over +her shoulder. The engine seemed almost on top of them--But Archie kept +his eye on his mirror. + +"Can't make it," he said suddenly. "All ready? Now! Jump!" + +To the after mortification of her entire life, Joan could not move. She +understood the necessity, her head was quite clear and calm, but her +limbs refused her bidding. + +The next instant he had seized her, tossed her out like a bundle, she +was falling--falling.... + +There came a crash, the splintering of glass and iron. + + * * * * * + +Long after she was able to, Joan dared not open her eyes. She fought +back the coming of consciousness, tried not to think. + +She was on a moving something--a wagon perhaps, or a train. There was +murmuring of voices near her. She strained her ears. The voices were +strange. + +She wanted to pray, but could not remember God's name. + +She was lying on some sort of lounge--a leather lounge. She lifted her +lids very, very slowly. She was in the smoking-compartment of a +train--alone! Where was he? She tried wildly to sit up--to call out-- + +And then something moved beside her on the edge of the couch. It was a +head, a bowed, curly head which she recognized and which belonged to a +figure that knelt beside her in an attitude of utter despair. + +"Oh, Archie, Archie!" she whimpered. "Then you _aren't_ killed!" + +The head jerked up. The next instant she was in his arms, her face +against his. She was being kissed and kissed again--eyes, lips, cheeks, +hair--whatever he could reach. She could not stop him. She did not try +to stop him. Indeed there was something consoling, comforting in those +frantic kisses, all wet with tears, and fiercely tender with the passion +of one who has brought his treasure single-handed out of the jaws of +death. + +"My God! My God! My God!" said Archibald; and nothing else. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +Two days later he came to see her, with a good deal of court-plaster +about his face, and limping on a sprained ankle; and found Joan in bed +with a wrenched shoulder, otherwise unhurt. Effie May convoyed him +amiably upstairs and left him there, to his intense perturbation. He +stood sheepishly beside the door, hardly daring to look at the pale, +laughing face among the pillows--that face with which he had taken such +amazing liberties. + +Joan in a _peignoir_, with her hair in a great braid on either shoulder, +looked more like the little girl he had first seen weeping alone on the +train, than the composed young lady of ballrooms and horse shows. Yet +his awe of her was not lessened. On the contrary. Once before, when she +lay thus helpless before him, he had forgotten himself. Suppose his +emotions were to form the habit of running away with him? He clenched +his hands hard. + +This timidity on his part did much to restore her own shattered +composure. She had been rather dreading this interview to which she had +steeled herself. Better to get it over and done with, however, since the +thing was inevitable. She could not quite ignore what had passed. + +"You might come closer," she suggested. "I really don't feel strong +enough to-day to converse with you through a megaphone." + +He seated himself gingerly on the edge of the chair she indicated, +looking everywhere but at Joan. + +"Oh, Archie!" she cried, suddenly tremulous, "wasn't it _terrible_?" + +He started. "Terrible" was not the word in his mind. "Outrageous," +perhaps--but by no means terrible! "W-what?" he said. + +"Why, the accident! Poor, poor Lizzie! Was there anything left of her at +all?" + +He found his voice. "Oh, Lizzie? Well, not much except her license tag." + +"Her poor precious little license tag!... Well, that will be useful +anyway, for the new machine." + +He shook his head. "I guess there isn't going to be any new machine." + +"Oh!" she flushed with quick sympathy. "You mean you--you can't afford +another?" + +"Why, I guess the railroad company'd help to buy me another if I wanted +it--the engineer didn't signal for that crossing. But--I don't. You +see," he murmured, looking down, "there were--well, there were sort of +associations with Lizzie." + +Joan understood. Her flush deepened. "I suppose you feel about her as I +do about Peggy," she said quickly. "My first horse! If anything were to +happen to her, I'd never feel the same about another.--I'm sorry, +Archie! We've had great fun out of the little car." + +He shook his big shoulders as if trying to rid them of some burden. "Oh, +what does the machine matter?" he said roughly. "What gets my goat is +what you must be thinking of me, what your father must be thinking! Of +all the dod-blasted he-idiots! Not to be able to take better care of a +woman than that!" + +"I think, and so does my father, that you took wonderfully good care of +me! If it hadn't been for your nerve, your quickness.... Ugh!" she +shuddered. "Dad says that not one man out of a thousand would have seen +what to do in time to do it. In fact, he's waiting in the library to +make you a speech before you go. Eloquence-with-gestures. Do you know, I +never realized before that in some ways man is really woman's superior? +You've got yourselves better in hand, your muscles do what you tell them +to. It was a good lesson for me." She smiled up at him. His miserable +eyes touched her, and she held out her hand. "Why, Archie! what makes +you look so ashamed?" + +He ignored that friendly hand. "I'm thinking that if your father knew +_all_ I'd done," he muttered, "he'd do something more to me than make a +speech. Eloquence-with-gestures, all right! Gestures of the foot." + +Joan decided to take the bull by the horns. "You mean when I came to, +and you--kissed me? Why did you do that?" she asked, gravely. ("There! +Now the tooth is out," she thought.) + +"Because I was a damn fool," he groaned. + +Joan's lips twitched despite herself. "Really, you're not very +complimentary!" + +But Archibald was beyond considerations of mere politeness. "Because I +hadn't the decent horse-gumption to keep my feelings to myself! Had to +go spilling 'em all over the place, insulting you with 'em!" + +There was a pause. "You care for me, then?" prompted Joan. + +Archie grinned, miserably. "Well, what do you think?" + +"I'm afraid you do." + +"You're dead right," he said. + +Another silence followed this admission, and then he rose to go. "I +guess that'll be about all from me!--Only I want you to know, Miss +Darcy, I--I never meant to do such a thing--I never knew I had it in me! +Good Lord! When I saw you all crumpled up there in that gully, not +moving at all, even when the train-gang came to pick you up--When I knew +that I had done it, I--! And then you opened your eyes and looked at +me.... Oh, hell, what's the use?" + +He turned blindly toward the door. + +She had to catch at his coat-tails to stop him. "Archie! Wait a +minute.--I'm going to make you a speech myself. In the first place, +Archibald Blair, your sort of 'feelings' wouldn't insult anybody. They +couldn't! I'm proud to have you care for me, and I'd be glad, too, if +only I could--But it's not as if you were asking anything in return, is +it?" + +"Me?--_asking_? Good Lord, I'm not such a mutt as that!" + +"Some day you will be 'asking,' Archie dear--a worthier girl than I am, +I know--and she won't think you a mutt at all!" + +He shook his head. "No, Miss Darcy. You've sort of spoiled ordinary +girls for me." + +She cried honestly, "I hope not! Oh, I do hope not! Because I was going +to beg you to stay friends with me--I need friends. And I _can't_ keep +you if you're going to go on feeling that way!" + +"Sure you can," said Archie, his eyes lighting. "Just try me and see! +I'll make one of the best little old pals you ever saw, if you'll just +forgive the fool way I acted. Now that the steam's sort of blown off, +we--we understand each other." + +"You're certain that we _do_ understand each other?" Her gaze met his +squarely. "You're not going to expect things that can't ever be?" + +"No, ma'am," said Archie. + +Tears suddenly came into her eyes. There was a quality in this faithful, +doglike devotion that made her feel ashamed. It deserved response; it +deserved something better than mere affectionate gratitude. But that was +all she found herself able to give. + +With a demonstrativeness rarer than he guessed, she caught his big hand +in both of hers and held it for a moment to her cheek. When she let it +go there was a tear on the back of it; which Archie, gazing at +wonderingly, suddenly lifted to his lips. + +It was in acts like this, little untaught gestures of pure reverence, +that the boy belied his slang and his big ears and his general +clumsiness, and harked back to the age of chivalry, when a gentleman was +not ashamed to dedicate himself to the service of his lady, and be her +very perfect knight.... + +After he had gone, Effie May wandered into Joan's room with a slight air +of expectancy about her which the girl was too preoccupied to notice. + +"You're lookin' sort of white about the gills, dearie," she remarked. +"Does the shoulder pain you?" + +"No. But something else does, and I don't know just what. Oh, Effie May, +what's the matter with me, anyway?" she burst out. "Sometimes I think +I'm not a human person at all, but just a big inflated Ego, floating +around like an observation balloon, taking notes!" + +"Well, well, is that so?" murmured her step-mother, who had her doubts +as to what an Ego might be. "I expect what you need for that floaty +feeling, dearie, is a good dose of calomel--" and she hurried away to +prepare it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +There is a certain period of the year when all its widely scattered +children home to Kentucky as surely as bluebirds home to the hollow +stumps in March. It is the season of the May race meet. + +All her life Joan had heard of the Kentucky Derby, and she looked +forward to it with almost as much eagerness as her father. Derby Day +means more to the Kentuckian than the running event that has become +classic. It means the reunion in street and club and hotel-lobby of +neighbors from the various towns of a State where neighborliness is +cultivated to the point of a fine art; of men who have been boys +together; of friends whose ways have drifted far apart (for your +Kentuckian is a great wanderer), and who have years to make up over the +clinking glasses. During the spring race meet, Louisville ceases to be +merely Louisville, and becomes Kentucky, the great old mother-home that +leaves its stamp upon its children even into the third and fourth +generation. + +There is a good deal of sentiment about the Derby, a good deal of +tradition; and there is as well a certain spirit of carefree, sporting, +joyous _bonhomie_ whose like is not to be found perhaps on any other +race-course in the world. + +Joan, who loved crowds, got much pleasure out of the streets at this +time. She took appreciative note of self-conscious belles from up-State, +in picture-hats and peek-a-boo blouses, with a predilection for wearing +long-stemmed roses pinned to their belts. She noted the young farmers +who accompanied them, big-shouldered, square-chinned, clear-eyed, +crimson with the sun--a sturdy, virile type, clumsy in their +country-made clothes, but with well-stuffed wallets bulging their hip +pockets. There is no poverty in the farming regions of Kentucky. + +She learned to recognize the professional racing people, men in +loud-checked clothes talking an incomprehensible jargon; shabby touts +offering confidential tips to anybody who would listen; women wearing +diamonds as large as peas, overdressed, coarse-voiced, not easily +distinguishable from their sisters of the underworld, except that their +men accompanied them openly. + +People of the larger world there were, too. The narrow streets were +congested with great touring-cars bearing unfamiliar license tags; New +York, Michigan, California. Once, hearing crisp Eastern voices at her +elbow, Joan turned just in time to see some people she had met at +Longmeadow disappearing into a hotel. For a moment her heart stood +still. She thought Eduard Desmond was among them. But it proved to be +another man, and Joan mingled hastily in the crowd, relieved that they +had not noticed her. + +In all this preparatory excitement Major Darcy was, as his wife put it, +"busy as a bird dog." There were kinspeople from the Bluegrass to be +welcomed, cousins from Paducah, Maysville, Fayette County. Joan, who did +not altogether share her father's enthusiasm for the ties of kinship, +rather admired her step-mother's skill in side-stepping the Major's +abounding sense of hospitality. Effie May had taken the precaution to +fill her house with paper-hangers. + +"What a shame! You'll have to take your cousins and things to the hotel, +Dickie, or put 'em up at the Country Club, won't you? If I'd only +thought!--" she murmured innocently; but catching Jean's suspicious eye +upon her, she winked. + +Joan returned the wink. She remembered her mother's patience under the +constant influx of Darcy relatives. She had also seen the unfortunate +Misses Darcy almost turned out of doors by the daily increasing numbers +of their kith and kin. The bookcase in their parlor had become, +surprisingly, a bed; and Miss Euphemia, the plump, as the one best +fitted by nature for this ordeal, was spending her nights on a +packing-box sparsely mitigated by pillows.--Not that the Misses Darcy +complained, however. They were long inured to the hospitalities of Derby +week. + +Effie May, indeed, was the only person of Joan's acquaintance who seemed +unaffected by the general excitement over the Derby. She heard with +apparent indifference that the Major had been able to secure a box +directly opposite the judges' stand, and she declined to rise early +enough to accompany him and Joan to Sunday morning breakfast at the +Jockey Club, where enthusiasts met regularly to inspect and pass +critical judgment on the offerings of the past week. + +"Lord, child!" she said once in answer to Joan's surprise at this +indifference. "Horses ain't no treat to me. You see, they used to be my +bread and butter." + +It was one of her few references to a past that rather intrigued her +step-daughter. + +"Were both of your husbands turfmen?" asked the girl, curiously. + +Effie May gave a brief nod; and Joan did not somehow feel encouraged to +further questioning. + +Derby Day dawned bright and sunny. + +"A fast track, Dollykins," cried the Major in great glee. "We ought to +break a record to-day!" + +"That means the Long colt," said Joan learnedly. "The Camden entry's apt +to prove a mud-hen." + +She had in the past week made an exhaustive research into the race-horse +question. Breeding and pedigree, record and past performance, rolled +trippingly from her tongue. Joan was what the theatrical profession call +"quick study." + +The Darcys had been invited to go out to the tracks in the approved +fashion, on top of a tallyho coach, tooled by Johnny Carmichael--who was +not quite as sober as might have been wished. But his four-in-hand +seemed aware of the fact, and took no ungenerous advantage of him. + +Effie May had awakened that morning with a bad headache, and proclaimed +her intention of staying at home. + +"What! Not see the Derby run?" cried her husband incredulously. + +And when with a great shouting and tooting of horns the tallyho drew up +under the porte-cochère, her determination weakened. + +"Oh, do come on, Mrs. Darcy! The air will do you good, and we shan't +have half as much fun without you!" cried several voices, for she was +very popular with young people. + +She hesitated. Joan decided the matter. + +"Put on a heavy veil to shield your eyes from the glare," she suggested; +and Effie May yielded. It was not often that her step-daughter asked for +her society. + +They became part of a procession that had been filing steadily past the +Darcy house since sunrise. Every vehicle in town and the surrounding +country, horse-power or motor-power, was on its way to the races. +Street-cars passed in a solid line, with passengers hanging to the +straps, bulging out of the windows, crowding on to the roofs. There was +a steady throng of foot-passengers, all heading in the same direction, +which hailed the tallyho as it passed with shouts of greeting and good +luck. The tallyho responded with tooting horns and waving parasols. + +It was a friendly, intimate, highly democratic gathering such as may be +found only south of Mason and Dixon's line; never pushing or jostling, +but good-naturedly determined to enjoy itself. At the gate humanity was +packed in a dense, immovable mass as far as the eye could see, and Joan, +descending from her elevation, looked at the crowd in mild alarm. But +the cry arose, "Make way for the ladies!" and instantly a lane appeared +as if by magic, through which she and her companions made royal +progress, laughing at the personalities which greeted them as they +passed. + +"Nobody ever minds what happens on Derby Day!" explained Emily +Carmichael. + +Once in the box, the men of the party deserted in a body for the betting +ring, and Effie May promptly hailed a messenger. Her interest in racing +seemed to have revived. + +"Let's see your tips, girls--anything good?" + +She looked over their various lists in a business-like way, approving +this, discarding that, displaying a knowledge that put Joan's recent +learned discussions to shame. + +"Will-o'-the-Wisp, Satyr out of Firefly. Umm! Ought! to be worth taking +a shot at. Who's up--Casey? No. Won't do! They'll can that crooked +little jock yet--" etc., etc., while her companions eyed her with +respect, and the messenger consulted with her laconically as with an +equal. + +"You want to play 'em straight across the board, dearie;" she admonished +Joan. "That's the only way to win. No piking!" + +But Joan declined to play them straight across the board, or in any way +at all. For one thing she had brought no purse. For another she was far +too busy with the people about her. + +Faces rose behind her in a packed mass to the top of the +grandstand--women's faces for the most part; school-girls, nice old +ladies, mothers of families (who occasionally fed their families under +the casual shelter of a shawl), gum-chewing shop-girls, houris of every +variety, respectable and otherwise, all chatting together with the +utmost simplicity under the spell of a common interest. In the boxes, +and on the clubhouse porch, were girls and women most of whom she knew, +dressed as if for a garden party. Chiffons fluttered in the breeze, +plumes waved, there were bared throats, and lace-covered arms, and +dainty white slippers. Here and there appeared the more conventional +tailored dress, looking almost conspicuous in its severity. For on Derby +Day, Louisville harks back to a custom as old as itself, and frankly +looks its loveliest. + +Just behind Joan in the front row of the grandstand sat a respectable, +gray-headed little old woman with a bonnet tied under her chin, quite +alone, who looked as staid and out of place as Ellen Neal would have +done in these surroundings. But she had a professional-looking pair of +fieldglasses at her eyes, and Joan noticed that her lips were constantly +moving and muttering. The girl turned her back on the Derby to watch +this odd figure. + +At first she thought the old creature was praying; but the syllables +that reached her ears were not prayer. + +"Come on, you Will-o'-the-Wisp! Hop it, baby! 'Ata-boy! Step, darlin', +step lively! Oh, you Will-o'-the-Wisp!" + +Joan saw that she was not merely watching the great race, she was riding +it, with whip, and knee, and voice. And at a certain moment the girl saw +that she had lost it. There was a shrug, a little despairing gesture of +the glasses, and the muttering ceased. + +An explanation suddenly occurred to Joan. She nudged Effie May. "Look at +this funny old soul behind us! She's evidently the mother of the jockey +that's riding Will-o'-the-Wisp," she whispered. + +Effie May glanced briefly over her shoulder, and smiled. "Mother +nothing! That's Texas Nell, who's been following the ponies since the +day of Molly McCarthy. She's lost and won more money, I guess, than any +woman in the business." + +A little later she suggested that they all adjourn to the Club House for +refreshments; but Archie Blair had come with the promise of taking Joan +down to the paddock later, and she decided to stay where she was. + +Archie, who seemed to know everybody, pointed out various celebrities +who were present; fine old General Dutton, down from Lexington with his +flock of famous though still unmarried daughters; Nick Sanders of the +Pisgah neighborhood, who had just escaped conviction for manslaughter +because of the unwritten law; Mrs. Kildare of Storm, a splendid-looking +woman in mannish hat and driving coat, here to see one of her colts go +to the post in the Derby--though of late years Storm was raising mules +instead of race-horses. + +"A shame, too, when it's one of the oldest stud-farms in the State," +commented Archie. "Racing's on its last legs when people like the +Kildares turn to breeding mules!" + +But racing did not appear to be on its last legs that day. The +eagerness, the wild enthusiasm, above all the joyousness of the crowd, +struck an answering chord in Joan. For the first time she really +understood the devotion of Kentuckians to their State and to each other. +It is never their work that endears a people to each other; it is their +play. In a world that takes itself overseriously, Kentucky still knows +how to play. + +She followed Archie presently down toward the paddock where the winner +was to receive his ovation; but as they reached the foot of the +staircase, suddenly there was the sharp explosion of a pistol. Instantly +the crowd surged in the direction of the shot. + +Archie, placing her behind him, forged his way through the struggling +mass to the nearest wall, where he stood her, breathless and disheveled, +but undismayed. + +"Goodness! This is local color with a vengeance! What's happening? Do +you suppose it's your man-eating friend from Pisgah?" + +"Just an old woman shot herself, they say," volunteered a friendly voice +near by, "Cleaned out, I reckon!" + +One of the intuitions to which Joan was liable came to her. Glancing up +at the grandstand, she saw the seat just behind hers was empty. + +"Oh, Archie! It's _my_ little old woman!" she cried pitifully. "Go and +see, will you?--a shabby old thing with a bonnet tied under her chin." + +He hesitated. "I don't like to leave you here alone. Suppose somebody +should speak to you?" + +"Then I shall most certainly speak back!" she said, and he reluctantly +obeyed her wish. Indeed, with Archie, her wishes were apt to assume the +form of commands. + +The gaiety of the scene was gone for Joan. She had got her glimpse of +the grim reality that lies beneath. She was to have another glimpse of +it. + +As she stood there, buffeted by the passing throng, she caught sight +across the wide passageway of her step-mother, in conversation with +somebody who for a moment she did not see. Joan started across to join +her. Effie May's back was toward her, and not until Joan was within +hearing distance did she notice the man to whom her step-mother was +speaking. Then she stopped where she was, startled. + +He was a dissipated-looking creature, hardly better in appearance than a +race-horse tout, flashily dressed, wearing a large diamond in his +tie--altogether one of the least desirable types of those who follow the +races. But he was not only talking with evident familiarity to Mrs. +Darcy, he had taken hold of her arm. It came to Joan in a flash that the +man was doubtless some relative, possibly her brother. What did they +know of Effie May's family? + +Joan stood still and frankly listened. + +"No, no, you don't put that over on me, old girl," this person was +saying in a low but carrying voice. "You're not going to slip away on me +again _that_ easy!" + +Her step-mother's rejoinder did not reach Joan's ears, but she saw her +glance round uneasily. Joan did not blame her for not wishing to be seen +with her present companion. She quietly slipped behind the shelter of a +pillar. + +"Married, eh?" repeated the man's voice. "Come, that's a good one! I'm +from Missouri, I am. You'll be sayin' Calloway married you next. Oho! he +did, eh? A bigger fool than I took him for! If that's the case--" his +voice sharpened--"you must a' come in for a pretty good thing when he +croaked. You'll have to come across, old sport. No going back on a pal!" + +The color suddenly went out of Joan's cheeks. She leaned against her +pillar, feeling rather queer. She wished she were not there--and yet she +listened. + +Effie May's voice reached her, speaking quite steadily, "Not one cent, +Joe! You're no pal of mine. When I left you it was for good and all, and +you know why!" + +"Humm! Well, we'll see what your new husband thinks about it, eh?" + +"No, you don't!" It was a sort of gasp; but instantly the voice steadied +again. "You'll never lay eyes on my husband, Joe. He doesn't live here. +I--I just happened to come over for the races." + +The man grinned. "That's easy enough! I seen you drivin' in with your +swell friends, and sittin' in a box and all. Recognized you right away, +too, for all that thick veil. You ain't the sort a man forgets easy, +Ef," he leered. "Not when he's knowed you like I have! I'll get your +name before you leave this stand, and then--Better come across, kiddo!" + +"I--let me go now, Joe! I'll think it over." + +The man chuckled. "Afraid somebody'll see you talking to me, eh? You can +bet your sweet life you'll think it over, and damn quick, too! See?" + +His grip tightened on her arm. Effie May glanced this way and that, +nervously. Joan stepped out from behind her pillar. After all, the woman +was her father's wife! She must be protected.... + +Just then she saw Archie coming, and hurried to him. + +"It was an old lady with a bonnet tied under her chin," he told her +soberly. "She's dead." + +But Joan had no ears for the earlier tragedy. + +"There's a man frightening Mrs. Darcy," she said breathlessly, "he seems +to be somebody she knows. He's--threatening her! Oh, Archie, what shall +we do?" + +The meaning of it, the incredible sordid horror of the thing she had +half learned, began to come home to her. Her father's wife! + +"Threatening!" Archie's jaw set. "Here, that won't do!" + +He strode forward, Joan following. They both heard the man say with +leering distinctness, "It ought to be worth a _little_ cash to a loving +husband to learn the sort of woman he's married up with, Ef, old girl!" + +Then Archie's hand fell on his shoulder. + +Joan never forgot the face her step-mother turned upon them--She made a +desperate attempt to rally. + +"Why--why, dearie! is that you? A--an old friend of mine's been giving +me a tip." + +"Get out," said Archie to the man. "Get out, quick!" + +"Hold on there, kid--So, you been robbing the cradle this time, Ef?" He +grinned at her evilly. "Wait a minute, mister, there's a few things I +might be able to tell you about this party--" + +"Nothing I don't know already," muttered Archie, his grip tightening. +"You've got five minutes to get off the grounds before I tell the +police. Blackmail's a penitentiary offense in this State." + +The man hesitated, looked at Archie's grim jaw, and went.... + +Joan and her step-mother gazed at each other. The woman's face had a +curious gray look under its perennial bloom, and she moistened her lips +with a dry tongue. + +"You--you heard?" she said at last. + +Joan nodded. She could not speak. + +It was Archie who remarked quietly: "You'll want to be going home, I +guess. I'll get a taxicab." + +Then sheer pity overcame the horror in the girl's mind. "Yes, Mother. +Come home with me!" she murmured. + +For the first and last time in her life she had called her father's wife +"Mother." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +"I guess you've got to have the whole story now, though it ain't a very +pretty story to tell a girl," said Effie May wearily. "I don't know as +your papa would much want you to hear it, Joan...." + +To the girl the whole episode seemed unreal, part of that strange day, +with the holiday crowds, the brief, hectic excitement of the races, +followed by the pistol-shot that meant the death of a ruined old woman. +She could not believe that she, Joan Darcy, convent-bred, the daughter +of reserved and fastidious people, could be actually participating in +this impossible melodrama. + +"What my father would wish hardly matters now, I think," she said, more +frigidly than she realized. "Please say what you have to say." + +All the way home her step-mother had wept, steadily and hopelessly, with +ugly snuffling noises that took away what dignity there might have been +in her grief. Joan, always helpless in the face of uncontrolled emotion, +made no effort to comfort her. Her impulse of pity had already died into +disgust. She could not look at that swollen, grayish face, of whose +careful complexion tears made strange havoc. + +The woman sighed. "If only you weren't so young!--I suppose you think +I'm a bad lot--bad as they make 'em. But I'm not. I never was. Oh, I +know I've done things ladies don't do!--but then ladies ain't often +asked to do 'em, dearie. You got to remember that." + +Joan shrugged, and resigned herself to hear what she was to hear. + +"I guess you know I wasn't born a lady, nor raised like one, though I've +tried.... Well, never mind that!--Pa had a little cash-and-carry grocer +store over to Indianapolis, and we lived upstairs, all of us in two +rooms.... It was the dirt I couldn't stand, and the crowding. It ain't +_right_ for a whole lot of children to live like that, all mixed in so! +The others didn't seem to mind, but I was always sort of nice in my +ways. Maybe because I was born before Mom took to the coke." + +"The what?" + +"Coke--dope, you know. It was the only thing that seemed to keep her +going, poor Mom! and I'm glad she had it." + +"Was your mother an invalid?" asked Joan, a little startled by this +breadth of tolerance. + +"Oh, no. But kids come along once a year regular, and she wasn't ever, +so to speak, well. I made up my mind when I wasn't more than ten never +to get myself in the fix Ma was in!... My two older sisters felt that +way, too, I guess. They always had fellows, but not the sort that'd do +to marry. Men like Pa, you know. No 'count--One of the girls worked at a +dressmaker's, and sewed till her eyes were red all the time, and her +shoulders stooped and she coughed. The other--well, the other didn't +keep straight, dearie. Awful few of the girls I knew did keep straight. +But Mame went into one of those houses--you know?--and had a lot of +swell clothes, and jewelry and all. I remember all us younger ones used +to envy her. But she didn't last long at it, and she died--horrible." + +Effie May's eyes were fixed on strange places, and the tragedy of the +world was in them. + +"She used to be a pretty thing, Mame; and sweet, too.... Well, it seemed +to me there ought to be _something_ better for a girl than marrying a +man like Pa and slaving, or getting a good job like Jule's and slaving, +or going wrong like Mame and slaving worst of all! Once when I was out +delivering dresses for the dressmaker where Jule worked, I saw what I +was looking for. Society women. Ladies. + +"That's what I'm going to be," I says to myself, "a Society woman! (I +was about twelve then.) You don't have to work, you live in a fine house +and wear swell clothes, and you can keep as straight as you like. + +"The others used to laugh at me, but Mom never did. She was real +ambitious for her children, Mom was. 'You keep on thinkin' so and you'll +get there,' she used to say. 'You're smart and pretty enough for +anything!' And so I was, then!" Effie May gave a sigh. + +"A fellow come along presently that looked pretty good to me. I met him +over to Casey's dance-hall, I remember, and from the first it was all up +with him. He was better than the fellows I'd been running with; a good +dresser, always flashing his roll--you know race-horse people used to +make good money before the Pari-Mutuels--And when he wanted me to come +over here to Louisville with him--well, it looked to be my +chance--Imagine starting out to be a lady, in company with Joe +Markheim!" said Effie May grimly. + +Joan exclaimed, "Not that dreadful-looking creature you were talking +with to-day?" + +The other nodded. "Only he wasn't dreadful-looking then. He was real +handsome--or he looked that way to me. You see I was only sixteen," she +sighed. "Almost anything in pants that'd take me away from home would +have looked good to me then, I guess!--But I talked to Mom about it, and +she thought I'd better take a chance, too. So I went." + +The girl had begun to shiver a little. "You mean--you married him?" + +Effie May gave her a queer look. "Well, yes. As near as I could. You see +he had a wife at the time." + +"He--betrayed you, then?" gasped Joan. + +"Oh, no, dearie, I knew. So did Ma. But we thought I'd better take a +chance.... You see, things like that depend on how you're raised. To us +it was almost the same as being married. Not like poor Mame, you know. +There's a whole lot of difference between a kept woman, and _her_ sort." + +"Is there?" said Joan with stiff lips. + +"My, yes! Sometimes if the man sees you're straight, he marries you +after a while.... But Joe didn't. I'm sure I don't know why I stuck to +him as long as I did, except, that I'm sort of an affectionate +disposition and don't like to change," she ruminated. "And then he began +to play in pretty bad luck, too, and that's not the time to leave a man, +when he's down and out. I guess I'd have been sticking yet, if he'd +acted decent--I ain't going to tell you what he asked me to do once when +he got on his uppers," she said, darkly flushing, "but it was something +no gentleman would have proposed to a woman who'd stuck to him through +thick and thin for years! That's when I left him for Calloway." + +"Did--did Mr. Calloway marry you?" asked Joan faintly. + +"Sure he did! Just before he died. He got religion, and the priest told +him he ought, so as he could leave me his money without any fuss. He was +a good old sport, that priest! And so was Calloway. Never turned a hair. +'Wish I'd done it before!' says he--Don't you think that's a pretty good +recommendation for a woman, when a man's willing to marry her after +living with her for fifteen years?" she asked wistfully. + +"I suppose so," murmured Joan--The usual thing was happening to her. Old +standards receded. Inevitably, irresistibly, she was beginning to see +things through the other's eyes. This was Joan's great weakness--though +there were people who considered it her strength. + +"Calloway was pretty near to being a gentleman--not a born one, like +your papa, dearie, but real genteel in his instincts, and he did a whole +lot to make a lady of me. He always insisted on us having the best of +everything, company especially. When he knew he had to die, poor +boy!"--her lips trembled--"he says to me, says he, 'Here's your chance, +old girl! Take the money, and go somewhere and make a fresh start,' he +says. 'You'll do! You're good as any of 'em.' His very words, dearie! +'You're good as any of 'em.'"--She wiped her eyes. + +"And so you came here?" prompted the girl. + +"Yes. I'd always liked the place. It seemed sort of friendly and +homelike, and it's small enough so that your money counts for something. +It wouldn't be lost, I thought, like in New York or Chicago--But I was +kind of lonesome at first--always been used to having a man around--and +I didn't know anybody. And then your mama died, and I saw my way clear. +You didn't know I knew your mama, did you, dearie?" + +Joan was rather startled. She had not realized quite how early her life +and her father's had been swept into the stream of this woman's +ambition. + +"Well, I did. Not to speak to, of course. But I used to watch her out of +my back windows, and think what a lady she was to be so poor, and wished +I knew how to scrape acquaintance with her. And once she caught me +watching her, and smiled up, just as sweet, as if she'd known me always +and liked me. (Sort of the way _you_ smile, dearie, when you're real +pleased.)--And when she died the idea came to me, all of a sudden, that +I was the person to look after them she'd left." + +Suddenly she buried her face in her hands and began to weep again. "Oh, +Gawd! Think of where I'd got to, and look where I'm at now!" + +Joan moved restlessly about the room, conscious of the ache of tears in +her own throat. She pictured that child of the streets and dancehalls, +poor little "Lightfoot Ef," as they called her, struggling to better her +condition, sturdily trying to find some tenable place of her own in +life, even as she, Joan, was trying--but under what hopeless handicaps! +She thought of the cocaine-drugged mother with ambitions; of the evil, +treacherous creature with whom the child had chosen to "take a chance"; +and it began to seem almost a miracle that Effie May should be what she +was. Joan looked at her with something like respect. + +"But I heard you tell my father you had buried two husbands!" she said +sharply. "If you really felt that you were 'good as any of them,' +that--that you had practically been married--why didn't you make a clean +breast of it all?" + +"Because I'm no fool!" gulped Effie May. "There are some things a man +won't stand for--though God knows why _they_ should be so all-fired +particular! And it seemed the only chance I'd ever get to marry a real +gentleman. Besides, there was you." + +"Me?" + +"Why, yes, dearie. I'd never had any children, and I always thought if I +could have I'd like 'em all to be girls, that I could dress up, and do +for, and bring up nice.... Oh, Gawd, Gawd!" she moaned, suddenly +flinging herself across the bed, face down. "Here I am in a grand house, +with a limousine, and servants of my own, and a husband like a king, and +a young lady daughter in society, and me giving parties to the pick of +the land!... And now to go down again, back to the gutter!" She beat the +bed with her fists. + +There was something appalling in the utter abandonment of this woman +whom Joan had never before seen otherwise than cheerful and poised. + +"If I'd never gone to the races! Oh, Gawd! If I'd never gone! I had a +hunch. I knew I'd meet up with that skunk Joe again somewheres, and I'd +ought to have kept out of his way! There isn't a soul in this town could +'a' told on me unless it was that boy Blair." + +"Archie?" repeated Joan, surprised. + +"Yes," she sobbed. "He spotted me the first time he saw me--I don't know +how. But I could 'a' kept _his_ mouth shut all right!--I was fixing him +so he'd never tell...." + +In her abandonment Effie May might have said rather more than she meant +to say, if at that moment a great honking of horns and shouting of gay +farewells had not announced the return of the tallyho from the Derby. + +She sat erect with a gasp. "It's _him_! For goodness' sake don't let +your papa catch me like this!" She flew to her dressing-table, reaching +for cold cream, powder, rouge. "Keep him off," she besought the girl. +"Quick!--pull down those shades--there, that's better. Help me into a +negligée--no, no, not that green one, for heaven's sake!--a pink one. +Now some perfume. Tell him he must be very quiet because of my +headache--don't forget, that's why we came home. There!--how do I look?" + +She leaned back languidly in a chaise-longue, with a handkerchief dipped +in cologne hiding her swollen eyes. + +Joan, rather dazed, had assisted at these hasty rites, marveling at the +triviality of a mind which could turn in one second from the catastrophe +of a wrecked life to considerations of vanity. And then the sheer +desperation of the thing struck her. Effie May was not done yet. She +meant to go down fighting. + +There was something in the girl that always responded to gallant effort. + +"Good luck," she said queerly, and went to the door. + +"Wait!" gasped the woman. "Joan! _Are you going to tell him right +away?_" + +"Not--right away," said the girl slowly. + +There came a little rush behind her. Effie May had caught up one of her +hands, and kissed it.... + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + +The girl had a difficult problem before her. She wrestled with it +throughout a sleepless night. She felt like Fate, with human destinies +in her control. + +At one moment her course seemed clear beyond the question of a doubt. It +was unthinkable that her father should continue to recognize as his +wife--her mother's successor!--a woman who had led an immoral life, who +had earned the very money that supported them by living for years as the +mistress of another man. Joan's cheeks burned with the thought. + +At the next moment, she wondered what her father would do without the +woman. She had no illusions left regarding Richard Darcy. He had never +in his futile life stood on his own two feet. He was one of the +inefficients, who must be cared for. Now, weakened morally and +physically by the habit of luxurious living, he was less able than ever +to take care of himself. Age was coming upon him rapidly. In the +struggle of life, he must go down utterly to defeat--Unless his daughter +could help him; and so far his daughter had been unable even to help +herself. + +The girl wondered, too, her heart sick within her, whether he would +consent to give up the luxury he loved when he learned the shame that +went with it.... Not that he would be able to forgive the woman! She +knew his fixed standards, his pride of race, too well to expect of him +any such magnanimity. The vulgarity of Effie May had been quite enough +for him to swallow, as it was. + +Joan thought that if, knowing his wife's past and utterly despising her, +he yet kept her because of material benefits, it would be a shame she +personally could not bear. Better, perhaps, that he be not put to the +test. + +And yet--in her mother's place, a woman of the town! (The girl was not +able to make the fine distinctions in vice suggested by her +step-mother.) + +There had to be considered, also, the fraudulency of continuing to +inflict such a woman on society in the guise of a lady. + +The word brought back a rush of pity to Joan's heart. Effie May had done +her best to be a "lady," poor creature, even to the extent of vainly +trying to remodel her speech and her manners on those of her new +family.... + +Joan, very white and drawn about the lips, ordered her horse in the +early morning and went for a long gallop, hoping to clear her brain. +When she returned, with nothing decided, she found Archie Blair in the +library waiting for her. + +She had never before been so glad to see him. It came upon her, with a +rush of relief, that here was somebody with whom she could discuss her +problem, whose advice she could ask. Archie knew! He was not very +clever, perhaps, never subtle nor quick in his mental processes; but +there was something sure about him, something utterly honest and +dependable. + +Evidently he had given others the same impression. + +"Mrs. Darcy sent for me to come out and talk things over," he said +gravely. "She wanted me to speak to you. She thought maybe I could make +you understand better." + +"Sent for _you_? Why, but you've never been one of her friends. You've +never even pretended to be!" + +"No," he said simply. "She isn't my sort, and she don't belong here. +She's too flossy. But since she's here, I'm sorry for her--Now that you +know, what are you going to do about it, Miss Darcy?" + +Joan laid her problem before him with a frankness she would not have +believed possible. She told him about her father. Never before, not even +to Stefan Nikolai, had she disclosed Richard Darcy quite as she had come +to know him latterly. It was an analysis that would have looked too +brutal set down in black and white. + +Archie listened thoughtfully, and with no appearance of embarrassment or +consciousness that the conversation was unusual. There was something in +his masculinity that never suggested sex. + +"I get you," he said at last. "You can't make up your mind whether to +upset the apple-cart and ease your conscience, or keep your mouth shut +and let everybody live happily ever after." + +Joan looked at him quickly. She had not expected quite such a lucid +summing up of the situation from Archie. But he seemed unconscious of +epigram. + +"Did I ever tell you," he asked irrelevantly, "about an old gentleman +that took our room after--well, after my mother went away--and let me go +on living with him because he said I was too small to make any +difference? A queer old bird he was, drinking himself to death as fast +as he could, but mighty good to me. It was him--he, I mean--who taught +me to read, and started me going to night school, and got me my first +job. When he was about half-lit he used to talk to me as if I was just +his age, about all sorts of things, life and books and folks--and one of +the things he used to say kind of stuck in my head. 'When in doubt, +Archibald' (he was the only person I ever knew who called me all of +it!), 'when in doubt, always be a little kinder than necessary....' +Pretty good dope, I think." + +There was a long silence. + +Then Joan said slowly: "Thank you, Archie! Yes, it is pretty good dope. +And your old drunkard must have been a good deal of a man. You must tell +me more about him some day." + +She gave her shoulders a little shake of relief. + +"Very well!--I won't upset the apple-cart. I didn't much want to, +anyway!" + +Archie smiled at her widely. It was a smile that said, "I knew it!" and +"Good girl!" and a number of other things that made Joan blush. She had +come by insensible degrees to value rather highly the good opinion of +her protégé. + +"But there's one thing sure," he said, sobering. "You'll be wanting to +get out of the apple-cart yourself!" + +That, too, Joan had faced in her long night's vigil. The question of her +future was no longer hovering in space. It was here, immediate, urgent. +She would have liked if possible not to spend another hour under the +roof that had been supplied by the late Mr. Calloway. + +They discussed the matter of her living in every aspect. + +"You mean you haven't got a red cent to your name, Miss Darcy? Gee!" +muttered Archie. "What was the old chap thinking of? Oil stocks! Might +as well have put the money on the races." Even in his loyal mind the +Major had undergone something of an eclipse. + +"Better, because then we could have seen it run," sighed Joan. "However, +it's gone, and now I've got to get busy!" (Archibald's language was +rather contagious.) + +She told him of her two alternatives. The stage he absolutely vetoed. + +"It's no place for a lady," he said stubbornly, and would listen to no +argument. Joan suddenly remembered that his mother had been an actress. +She did not pursue the question. + +"Newspaper work might do," he admitted. "A society reporter with the +pull you've got ought to be worth some money." + +"A society reporter!--You mean I'd have to go to my friends' houses and +publish what happens there? Oh, Archie, I'm afraid I couldn't do that." + +"Why not?" he said innocently. "They like it." + +But Joan persisted. "I'm willing to report _anything_ except society." + +"Murders? Police courts?" he suggested grimly. + +"Yes, if I must." + +"Well, I guess not!" said Archie. + +She laughed a little helplessly. "But, Archie, you veto everything I +suggest! Really, you're not very helpful. Don't you understand that I've +_got_ to earn my living, right at once? I'm unskilled labor. Beggars +can't be choosers. You'd suppose nothing was good enough for me!" + +"And it isn't!... Gosh!" he said miserably--(she saw that his big hands +were shaking)--"The idea makes me right down sick! A little delicate +thing like you, out in the scramble with the rest of us--! I know what +it is, you see. Bad enough for a fellow, sometimes. I know the things a +working girl has to do and stand for. Honest to God, I'd rather see you +married!" he groaned. + +Unselfish devotion could go no farther, and Joan knew it. + +She suddenly found herself on the verge of tears. She was tired out, +mind, soul, and body. She would have liked to put her head down on his +shoulder and simply cry till she was comforted. It was such a big, broad +shoulder, so amply adapted to the bearing of burdens. She could make him +happy, too, poor boy! One and all, people seemed to expect nothing of +her but marriage--her father, Effie May, Stefan Nikolai, and now Archie. +Perhaps they knew best. They were many and she only one. Temptation +beset her--or was it inspiration? She did not know.... + +Meanwhile Archie was elaborating his forlorn idea. "Isn't there +_somebody_ who would do?" he urged. "Surely of all the fellows who've +been hanging round, there ought to be one decent chap who'd give his +head and ears to keep you out of this--to take you away from here +himself?" + +Joan made her decision. + +"I think there is," she said tremulously. "Only--he won't say so." + +"The big mutt!" cried Archie--and then paused. Her expression, the +significance of her voice, began to penetrate his humility. + +"You--_you're not joshing me_?" he gasped. + +Joan put out quick hands as though to ward him off, suddenly afraid of +the glow she had kindled in his face. + +"Wait, Archie! I don't love you--you know that. Not as you love me, I +mean. I don't believe I ever will love anybody that way. I--perhaps I'm +not fine enough--But I do like you and trust you more than anybody else +in the world. And so--if that's enough--If you want me--" + +"_Do I want you?_" Archie gripped the edge of his chair to keep himself +anchored to _terra firma_. "Say, Miss Darcy, I--I--" + +"Don't you think," she suggested with a quivering smile, "that as we are +about to become engaged, you might begin to call me 'Joan'?" + +At that, with a great cry of "JOAN!" he gave up hold on the chair and +_terra firma_ together. + + * * * * * + +The sound of the overturned chair brought Effie May on a reconnoitering +expedition to the upper landing of the stairs, which commanded an +unsuspected view of the library. What she saw caused her to tiptoe away, +smiling to herself a little sadly. + +"_His_ mouth's stopped all right--" she thought (with perfect +truth)--"now that it doesn't matter!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +There were those, notably among the Jabberwocks, who felt that in +availing herself of the age-old solution of handing her burdens over to +a man to bear, Joan had rather hauled down her colors. Perhaps she felt +so herself, after the first glow of relief was over. + +But if she needed solace, she got it in the radiant, incredulous, +blissful attitude of Archibald. He could not believe the marvelous thing +that had happened to him. A dozen times a day he was obliged to glance +at the ring he had given her (a solitaire inevitably, small but of good +water) to make sure that he was not dreaming. + +He began at once, following the example of the birds about him, to +prepare for the coming event; "twigging" as Joan called it to herself, +amusedly. He was as mysterious about it, and quite as obvious, as any +robin darting about with a straw in its beak. He called her to the +telephone frequently to ask such questions as how many drawers a +"chiffoneer" ought to have; and when she asked him why he wanted to +know, the reply was a joyous, "Never you mind!" + +He listened with the stealth of a Sherlock Holmes for any expressions of +preference on her part, putting them secretly down in a note-book; and +Joan grew afraid to mention any object, no matter how unlikely, for fear +it would become part of the procession of packages which Ellen reported +as filing daily past her door to the room upstairs. + +"A rocking-chair come this morning," Ellen would report. "Golden oak, +all carved! Yesterday it was one them new-fangled electric-lamps with +brass chain hanging down like fringe. Real tasty. The day before it was +a statute." + +"Heavens, Nellen--Not a statue!" + +"Sure! A nigger woman brandishin' a spear. I poked a hole in the +wrappin's to get a good look at it." + +(Joan had once unguardedly envied the Carmichaels their rare old +bronzes.) + +She was touched but alarmed, and decided that she would better hasten +the wedding if only to put a stop to this indiscriminate twigging. + +Others were almost as pleased with the engagement as Archibald; her +father, for one, who had not expected quite so early a release from +parental responsibility. Joan, while a creditable child, had proven a +rather difficult one, especially since his marriage. + +"Not that it is quite such an--er--ambitious arrangement as I could have +wished, Dollykins,"--(a ducal alliance would have been more in accord +with Darcy inclinations). "But young Blair is an excellent fellow, an +excellent fellow. And after all, in this world virtue is the thing that +counts!" He appeared to indicate that in the next world things might be +arranged more satisfactorily. + +Ellen was as proud of this unexpected _dénouement_ as if it were an egg +of her own hatching. + +"I didn't believe you had the gumption!" she said unflatteringly. "I +thought you was too highminded to know a real man when you seen +him.--And now, praise the day! you'll be needin' your mamma's furniture +back again." + +"Oh, but, Nellen darling, what will you do without it?" + +"Me?" The old woman's face fell. "Why, I kind o' thought you'd be takin' +me along with the furniture. Unless I'm too stiff and plain to be makin' +you a fancy servant like you're used to nowadays!"--she tossed her head +angrily. + +Joan hugged her. "I'd rather have you than all the fancy servants in the +world, and you know it. But I thought you preferred being an independent +modiste in lodgings. And then--you see, dear, I'm not quite sure whether +Archie can afford a servant." + +She had not so far been able to bring him down from the clouds long +enough to discuss ways and means. + +"Sho! He can afford _me_ all right. I'll save him money--And you don't +suppose he's going to let you spoil them white hands of yourn with +housework and cookin'? Not if I know Mr. Archie!..." + +The Misses Darcy were almost tearful with gratification, and received +Archie with the sort of romantic respect younger girls accord to heroes +of the matinée. + +"What did I prophesy?" cried Miss Virginia. "Only one season out, and +already--! Such a beautiful name too,--'Mrs. Archibald Blair.' Not a +Kentucky or Virginia one, of course. However, there _are_ other States, +Maryland, or South Carolina, or even Massachusetts. Where did you say +he was from, precious girl?" + +"Louisville." + +The sisters exchanged startled glances. "Louisville? But that's +impossible. We do not know his people!" + +"He hasn't any people." + +It was Miss Euphemia who recovered herself first. "So much the better," +she murmured. "I mean--Not that one would wish them to have died, of +course! But really, you know, in-laws--" + +"And so often I think a self-made man--" Miss Iphigenia took up the +parable. "So many of our Southern families seem to run largely to girls +nowadays. What I mean is, a little good red blood--" + +"Sister!" murmured two shocked voices. Everybody blushed. + +"I'm afraid Archie isn't even a self-made man, yet," smiled Joan, +mentally struggling to fill in the gaps. "I shall have to help make +him." + +"Ah, yes! A woman's touch, as dear papa used to say--" + +Joan reflected that the late Mr. Darcy must have known a good deal about +the power of a woman's touch.... + +Her friend Emily's congratulations were something on the same order, +though more frankly expressed. There was a wholesome attitude of +frankness always between the two girls. + +"I think it's dear of you, Joan," she exclaimed, "and so brave!" + +"Just why 'brave'?" + +Emily answered, despite embarrassment, "Why, to marry a man without +antecedents, without position, and without money, seems to me very +brave. I know I should never have the courage to do it, even if I cared +for him. In fact, I should be mighty careful not to care for him!--But +then I've never had your spirit of independence." + +"Perhaps because you've more to lose," said Joan quietly. "If either of +us is brave, I think it's poor Archie." + +She often thought of her lover so; tenderly, even lovingly, but as "Poor +Archie!..." + +Effie May was the only one of Joan's immediate environment who seemed to +look with any doubts upon a situation she herself had largely brought to +pass. + +"Look here, girlie," she said once abruptly. "You don't love that boy. +At least you ain't in love with him--and there's a difference. Why do +you do it, anyhow?" + +Joan, taken by surprise, was not immediately ready with her reply. + +"Is it because you want to get away from me?" asked the other. + +Still Joan was not ready to answer, and Effie May sighed. "You needn't +have gone so far as that," she said, "I'd have fixed it for you +somehow--I'm not going to forget what you've done for me, Joan. Not +telling, treating me just as if--it was all right. You're a bigger woman +than you know you are," she added, gravely. "I'll make it up to you some +day, see if I don't." + +Joan gave her a quick, straight look. "If you mean money, Effie May, and +I think you do, we'd better come to an understanding at once. I'm +keeping my counsel about--about your affairs; I'm helping you commit a +fraud, you know--entirely on my father's account. For myself--that's +another matter. I appreciate your kindness, I know you have meant to do +your best, but--" + +"But you're done with me?" finished the other. + +"Yes. I shall only see so much of you hereafter as is necessary to keep +Father from suspecting anything. As for your money,"--the girl's voice +shook--"neither I nor my husband will ever touch a cent of it under any +circumstances. Do you understand? We do not forget how it was--earned." + +The other sighed again. "Well, dearie, don't forget that it _was_ +earned, good and plenty!--And I've done you one good turn already," she +remarked _sotto voce_, as the girl turned away to greet her fiancé. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + + +Joan and Archibald were married two weeks later, very quietly, before +only her family, resisting all the Major's importunities to make an +occasion of it. Nor would the girl accept a trousseau. + +"If I need any more clothes than I've got already, Archie will buy them +for me. Won't you, old boy?" she said, slipping her hand into his. + +Archie, with the happy consciousness of a rapidly growing business and +several years' savings in a Building Association replied proudly that he +would. + +One comment she had missed on her engagement; Stefan Nikolai's. She had +written to him at once (her first letter since his post-card advising a +preliminary course in matrimony), saying in effect, "Now I hope you're +satisfied!" But as no reply came, she reached the correct conclusion +that he was on the wing again, with her letter following him from +address to address, unread. + +Ten minutes after the little ceremony that left her no longer Joan +Darcy, a cablegram was brought to her from London. + +"Wait. Coming. Nikolai." + +To which she replied with reckless extravagance: + +"Too late. Sorry. Come anyway...." + +Alone at last with her husband in a carriage (to which the negro +yard-boy, feeling with the Major that something was lacking to the +occasion, had generously attached one of his own shoes), Joan asked +rather listlessly where he meant to take her. She had a conviction that +it would be to Atlantic City, or to Niagara Falls. + +For Archie was everything that was most correct in the way of +bridegrooms. His bulldog toes, his padded blue serge, his near-Panama +hat, his very socks, were so palpably bought for the occasion that Joan +felt that to match him she ought to be wearing dove-gray and a shrinking +manner. + +But she did not feel particularly shrinking; merely relieved that the +die was cast, and tired enough to be glad of the arm that stole +tentatively around her. + +"What train are we catching, dear?" she asked. + +"No train at all.--Oh, Joan," he said tremulously, "I hope you won't +mind! It's just for to-night--just a foolish idea of mine." + +"What is?" + +"Wait and see!" + +She waited rather apprehensively. She was a little nervous about +surprises, since her father's recent effort in that line. + +But the carriage was traversing a street she knew well, and it presently +stopped in front of the house where Ellen lived. There was still a tinge +of afterglow reflected in its many-paned windows, and among the young +feathery leafage of the old sycamore sparrows were preparing to go to +bed. Two or three of the denizens of the lower floors were taking a +breath of air on the doorstep. They stared at the carriage with +interest. + +"None of 'em know about us yet," reassured Archie in a whisper. "Just +bluff it out." Aloud he said to one of them (it was the lady who +expertly curled feathers): "Do you know whether Mrs. Neal is in, Mrs. +Higgs? We've come to see her." + +"I don't know as she is, Mr. Archie," replied the other, her eyes taking +avid note of Joan's smart tailor-made dress and traveling hat. "But I +know she's expectin' company all right, 'cause I been smellin' comp'ny +cookin' all day! Go right up and make yourselves to hum," she urged, +with the never-failing hospitality of her class. + +Archibald led his wife up the dim, curved stairway that had doubtless +known the reluctant feet of many another bride before her, and opened +Ellen's door with a key. + +"Yon _are_ honored," murmured Joan. "I didn't dream that Ellen had got +to the point of trusting gentlemen with her latch-key!" + +"Look!" said Archie proudly. + +The room was gay with flowers, truly a bridal bower; and in its center +stood the old round walnut table she had known all her life, much +battered by the kicking of her own youthful toes, set for two, and laden +with delicacies. There was a small but magnificent wedding-cake, there +was chicken-salad, crisp pink tongue, pickles, chocolates of Joan's +favorite brand, and resting in a pail of ice-water, its neck swathed in +a napkin, a bottle of champagne. + +"Cinnamon-rolls keeping hot in the warmer, butter in the ice-box +right-hand side, and I'm only to light the jet under the coffee-pot, and +leave it to bubble ten minutes--" murmured Archie, as one reciting a +well-conned lesson. + +Joan's listlessness suddenly disappeared. She hugged him. + +"What a perfectly _beautiful_ wedding-supper!" she cried. "Was it your +idea, or Ellen's?" + +"A sort of combination, I guess. She thought you might feel more +homelike here with your mother's things, and I--well, it's my home too, +you see!--So you don't mind?" + +"Mind!" she winked hard to keep the tears back. "Archie, let's have +pancakes, too!" she cried. + +They had pancakes. They also had eggs, in the scrambling of which +Archibald was quite expert. Afterwards they washed the pans and dishes +together, with two of Ellen's aprons tied around their necks, amid much +merriment. + +"I had no idea married life was so pleasant!" she sighed. "Archie, let's +always do our work like this, together!" + +"Work?" he picked up one of her hands and examined it reverently. Joan +had rather beautiful hands, sensitive and lithe, delicately white, with +rosy palms and finger-tips. "I'll let you play at work now and then," he +said soberly. "But work is for us men, my Joan, not for our women!" + +"It's fortunate the cooks and housemaids of the land don't agree with +you," she teased; "or perhaps they do, and hence the servant problem!" + +Later, they locked Ellen's door and put the key under the mat, and went +up a flight higher. Joan entered Archie's room with some curiosity. To +her, people's environment spoke a clear language; and sometimes she +realized, with a little shock, that she knew nothing at all of the man +she had married. + +It was a long, low attic chamber, whose ceiling sloped cosily down over +casement windows with wide sills. There was a fine fireplace, marred, +however, by a small stove showing evidences of occasional culinary +efforts. + +The results of Archie's twigging were very apparent; notably the +golden-oak rocking-chair, the "chiffoneer" surmounted by the bronze lady +with a spear. But she was more interested in the things which had +belonged to him. + +As Ellen had told her, the place was littered with books, shelves, +tables, and even window-sills. Joan examined these eagerly. There was a +very shabby Shakespeare in a good edition, an old pocket Emerson, a new +Rubaiyat, a brand-new "Alice in Wonderland" (which made her smile); but +it was no scholar's library. Archie's tastes were not what he would have +called "high-brow." The works of Marie Corelli and Conan Doyle +predominated, with several school geographies and histories, and various +treatises on the psychology of salesmanship. She found something rather +touching in this collection of books, remembering that he had referred +to it as his college career. + +She looked next for his pictures, those other sure indications of the +inner man. But there were none, except the small photograph of herself +in its elaborate frame, with a little vase attached holding fresh +flowers. + +"Archie!" she protested, laughing, "I look like a Madonna in a shrine!" + +"One of those namby-pamby parties with a dinner-plate behind her head? +Never saw one of them that could touch you!" he pronounced candidly. + +"I fear your correspondence-course has been neglecting Art," she +murmured. "There was a fellow named Botticelli who did some very neat +little things in that line. But come now, surely you've got some other +pictures hidden away somewhere? No naughty ballet-girls kicking up their +limb-legs? No bareback ladies? Or Parisiennes exhibiting wicked garters? +Honest Injun?" + +He grinned sheepishly. "I did have," he admitted. "But I sort of lost my +taste for 'em when you gave me that picture of you." + +She kissed him. + +"That's a prettier compliment than the little vase of flowers before my +picture, dear!..." + +Archie had been standing at the door, watching her progress around his +room with eyes that were almost incredulous. His room!--and she in +it!... He felt that if he opened a window she might flutter out again, +back into the world from which she came. Once, when he was very small, +he had found a belated autumn butterfly in the street, and brought it +home, and put it on a geranium-plant he had in the window, hoping it +might like to spend the winter there. But in the morning it lay dead +against the pane. Archie remembered that butterfly now, and shivered. +She saw him. + +She ensconced herself in the largest and shabbiest of his three chairs +and patted the arm of it invitingly. "Come over here, and let's really +talk!" she commanded. + +He obeyed. "What shall we talk about?" + +"Tell me about your mother," said Joan. + +He told her what he could remember. It was not much except a voice--a +soft English voice; and the feeling of arms that held him close; and +quite clearly the sound of sobbing beside his pillow whenever he woke +suddenly at night. + +"Nothing was ever heard from her after she left you here?" + +"Oh, yes. Money came once or twice to the landlady for my board--this +was a boarding-house, then. But after a few months it stopped coming." + +"And haven't you _any_ idea what became of her?" + +"She died, of course," said Archie simply. "Or she'd have come back for +me. There were people who thought--" he swallowed hard--"that she left +me here on purpose, and never meant to come back. That isn't so. I don't +know much about her, but I do know that she loved her child. You, can't +fool a kid about that!... And there were people who thought she killed +herself. But I don't somehow believe she was a quitter. What do _you_ +think?" + +He had taken a photograph out of his pocket, and handed it to Joan, who +studied it closely. Despite the unbecoming "fringe" and jersey of an +earlier day, it was a lovely face she saw, without a hint of folly or +weakness or worse. The chin was firm as Archie's, the features strong as +they were delicate. The face was still rounded and soft with youth, yet +out of it looked a pair of haunted eyes. + +"No, your mother was no coward," she said with conviction. "But she was +a very unhappy woman. And Archie--she was a lady!" The look of race +seemed to her unmistakable. + +He drew a great breath. "I think so, too," he said gladly, "I've always +thought so. That's how I dared--" Suddenly, passionately, he drew her up +into his arms. "Oh, my Joan, do you see why I wanted you here in my own +home? It's all the home I've ever had. Anything that's happened to me +has happened here. I've lain here at night trying to be a man when I was +nothing more than a kid. I've sat here listening, listening--Oh, for +years I used to think I heard my mother coming up the stairs to get me, +long after I was old enough to know she never would! And sometimes I +thought--Do you believe in ghosts?" + +"Yes!" said Joan. "Ghosts of people that love us and want to help--" + +"That's what I mean! And that's why I wanted to stay on in this room, +where--she could find me. It's a horrible thing not to belong anywhere, +nor to any one, like any little fyst dog in the streets. I've never said +this before--" + +"I know!" whispered Joan. + +"And now that I do belong to some one, I wanted my room to know it. I +wanted--in case there _were_ any ghosts--" + +"I know," whispered Joan again, her lips against his. + +There was a taste of salt on them, and she held him close and closer, +this great, lonely child who should never be lonely again. If, as she +had warned him, she was not capable of offering deep love, Joan could at +least offer deep understanding, which perhaps is rarer.... + +And presently as she held him so in the quiet of his old room, with the +house settling into drowsiness about them, and the sycamore tapping its +friendly signal on the roof close above their heads, Joan's identity +seemed to be slipping, merging, into that of some one else. She ceased +to be Joan the girl. She felt, in that strange moment of transition, +partly the wife, and partly the mother; but most of all the woman, whose +mission is to give. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + + +There is, among the wives and mothers of what the + +Misses Darcy were wont to call the polite world, a general conspiracy of +silence on the subject of honeymoons. The theory is allowed to go +unchallenged that a honeymoon is invariably a period of bliss and +romance unalloyed; the conspirators apparently subscribing to the ideas +of the stoical parent who teaches his child to swim by throwing him +unexpectedly into the water. If he manages to keep afloat, well and +good; if he drowns, regrettable; if he comes out alive but with a +shrinking cowardice with regard to water that never afterwards leaves +him, perhaps it is no concern of his parent's. And again, perhaps it is. + +Joan and Archibald Blair returned from their honeymoon not quite as +close friends as when they embarked upon it. Joan's manner had gained a +certain kindliness, a gentle consideration that was akin to sympathy; +whereas Archie, with puzzled eyes and a smile that beamed rather +uncertainly, almost evinced his desire to propitiate by rolling over at +her feet and holding up four paws to heaven. (Which was no way to +propitiate our heroine.) + +Honeymoons, however, do not last indefinitely; and by the time Ellen +Neal and her furniture and the results of Archie's "twigging" were moved +into a certain modest house that simply cried aloud to be purchased (on +the installment plan), Archie had grown almost accustomed to the sight +of the One and Only seated at his breakfast table _en negligée_, pouring +out his coffee, with a preoccupied word from him now and then as she +glanced through the morning paper. (It was characteristic of that +household that Joan was the one who read the morning paper.) He kissed +her whenever he liked without asking leave; and in return she rumpled up +his hair deliciously, and called him "Goose!", and reminded him to bring +oranges from downtown because the neighboring grocery had such poor +ones. + +Joan entered upon the domestic rôle with her usual thoroughness. + +At first she had been rather afraid of the expenditure the purchase of a +house involved. It sounded to her too much like the large and not very +practical ideas of her father. But when Archie pointed out to her that +even day laborers managed to own their cottages, thanks to +building-associations, and that purchase on this plan was merely a way +of saving money, she yielded without undue reluctance. After all, there +was not only his salary to be relied upon, but his commissions, +dependent upon his own energy, which seemed boundless. Like many poor +girls, she was quite ignorant of the value of money. Beyond the +purchasing power of a concrete sum, say one thousand dollars, money +meant nothing to her at all. Ten thousand dollars, twenty thousand +dollars--they seemed very much the same. + +The house was its own best advocate; one of the charming English cottage +types that are beginning to make home life not only comfortable but +dignified for the small householder in our American cities. The +neighborhood was excellent, one of the pretty green courts she had long +ago coveted; and there was a small garden artfully arranged into vistas +and quite an air of privacy by means of shrubbery, and overlooked by a +secluded porch whose coolness seemed like paradise to Archie, hurrying +to it out of the hot city. + +The garden was his part of the establishment; and there he might be +observed any morning shortly after sunrise, digging, pruning, whistling +tunelessly between his teeth, with one eye on a window whence would +presently issue the drowsy voice of Joan, calling, "Good-morning out +there, Adam!" Then with a rush Adam would disappear from his garden, +leaving spade or hose where he happened to drop them, lest Eve need +assistance with buttoning a blouse or tying a shoe. + +It was a glorious time for Archie. He was almost painfully happy. + +The Jabberwocks and others took a good deal of critical interest in +Joan's house. She had always been suspected of being a little odd, and +her house proved it indubitably. At a period when Louisville was +graduating out of the green-wall-and-mission-furniture period, through +Coloniality, into a more catholic appreciation of possessions which +express the personality of the possessor, Joan's house was still rather +a shock to all preconceived notions of decoration. There was none of the +white woodwork and panelled severity which sounded the correct and most +recent note. Joan's woodwork and walls were alike a soft, practical +gray--"Soot-color," she explained placidly--and the plaster had been +left rough-cast. Against it, instead of the accepted pictures of the +day, hung two or three rare prints, a cast of the Parthenon frieze, and +a fine strip of Persian embroidery. On the floor were black skin rugs. A +green vine, growing out of an ancient yellowed marble jar, wandered at +will across one wall and up the brick of the chimney-place. + +"You got that idea in Italy," commented one visitor. + +But the undoubted charm of Joan's house was that she had taken no ideas +from anywhere. She simply had about her the sort of things she liked. +There were ferns growing in the window-sills, and no curtains whatever +except two lengths of heavy pumpkin-colored silk which might be drawn +across the panes at will, but rarely were. + +"People will be able to see in when the lamps are lighted," protested +her step-mother. + +"What of it? They won't see much over those ferns," said Joan, "and I +always love to peep in at lighted windows myself, don't you? Haven't you +ever noticed how much nicer the houses in this part of the world look +when they're undressed for the summer? Personally, my taste has never +run to lingerie in household decoration." + +Effie May, who was nothing if not receptive, went home and meekly took +down her point-lace curtains. + +What troubled Louisville most about the Blair house was its lack of a +dining-room. There was no chamber held sacred to the rites of +nourishment, with chairs sitting primly against the wall and a center +table with a centerpiece upon it, bearing a fernery or--what was more +recently affected by the really up-to-date--a dish containing imitation +fruit. ("So much smarter than the real kind," explained her neighbor, +Mrs. Webster, who had quite a taste for the correct in art.) There was +no sideboard for the display of wedding-silver, no china-cabinet +containing the best glassware in glittering serried rows. What was the +use of having nice things, thought many a troubled housewife, if they +were to blush unseen in pantries? + +But Joan did not understand, and frankly said so, why in a small house +one room should be set aside for use only three times a day. She needed +the extra wall space for her books. Besides if there was a dining-room +people seemed to feel obliged always to eat in it, instead of in the +garden or the porch, or on a table drawn close to the window, where one +might look out into the world while one ate, as in a pleasant +restaurant. + +"I'm like the Irishman," she remarked, "who said that he was glad he +didn't like strawberries, because if he did he'd have to eat them, and +he hated the damn things.--Try having your meals served about in +different places, and see if you haven't a better appetite for them!" + +Even the admiring Jabberwocks felt that this was carrying oddity to the +extreme. They always took strangers, however, to see Joan's little +house, and incidentally Joan herself. Mr. Nikolai had sent her recently +several Mandarin costumes, unique in the history of Louisville for +domestic wear, in which she appeared comfortable, piquante, and quite +exotically feminine. + +"Fancy! Trousers on a bride! And at such a time, too," murmured the +ladies of the neighborhood among themselves. + +But as Effie May pointed out to the Major, himself a trifle shocked by +this eccentricity of costume in a lady of his family, "She's slim enough +to wear 'em, Dickie, and those full silk pants are certainly becoming to +the feet. Wish I had some myself--Don't you worry," she added, chuckling +over the Major's expression, "I haven't! Pantaloons weren't meant for +the pincushion style of figger." + +Archibald, of course, found the Mandarin costume adorable. He would have +found any costume of Joan's adorable, even a Mother Hubbard, or its +lineal descendant, the bungalow-apron. + +Altogether, Joan had a rather happy aftermath to her honeymoon. "The +pasture-time," she called it, during which she was as placid and content +as a cow in a clover-field. For the first and possibly the last time in +her life she was quite free from worry. That was one of the things +Archie took completely out of her hands. He would have liked to take +everything out of her hands that might be irksome to her--her thinking, +her very sleeping and eating, had it been possible. But worry at least +was something he could take upon his own broad shoulders. + +Her personal allowance and the allowance he made her for household +expenses were paid regularly into her account--an arrangement Joan had +insisted upon, despite his protest. + +"Why should you be bothered with the paying of bills, darlingest?" + +"But I _love_ to pay bills, Archie," she had replied, rather piteously +to one who had known anything of the earlier Darcy _ménage_. "It's a +real pleasure to get them all out of the way before the tenth of the +month!" And it was a pleasure she attended to religiously, even after +she began to grow a little lax and indifferent about other household +matters. There were to be no "Indians" in the annals of the Blair +family. + +Joan had never been so sluggish mentally as in these first months of +married life; yet she felt almost abnormally normal, close to the great +heart of existence, at one with the physical world about her, content +with the content of a cog which fits well into the wheel where it +belongs. + +Long afterwards some would-be cynic asked her whether she believed that +marriage _per se_ was an experiment which paid. + +"Yes!" she answered without hesitation. "If only for the moment when you +tell your husband that he is to have a child." + + + + +CHAPTER XL + + +Her father took a satisfaction in Joan's house and husband and general +condition of modest prosperity which surprised and rather touched the +girl. It was as if he found in her well-being a justification of +something that needed justifying. "I may have my weaknesses," his manner +seemed to say, "but observe how well I have provided for my child!" + +He dropped in almost daily for his afternoon julep on the shaded porch +that overlooked her garden. Effie May had the tact rarely to accompany +him, and Joan found herself seeing more of her father than she ever had +under his own roof. + +"I don't know just what it is, my dear," he once said, musingly. +"Possibly the familiar furniture, or the presence of Ellen Neal (quite a +fair cook, Dollykins, though her manner leaves something to be desired). +But somehow in this little establishment of yours I always feel as +if--well, as if Mary were about somewhere." He sighed sentimentally. "I +feel as if she might at any moment sit down beside us and take out a bit +of sewing. She was rarely without sewing, you remember?" + +"I remember." Joan patted his hand, a demonstration rare with her. "I am +glad you feel that way, Father. Mother always does seem very close to +me--especially just now." An odd feeling of sorriness for her +step-mother came over Joan. "You are sure," she asked on an impulse, +"that Effie May does not object to your coming here so much without +her?" + +"Object? To my visiting my daughter under her own vine and figtree? It +would hardly be within her province to object," he commented regally. +"But, as it happens, she is the one who frequently suggests my visits. +She quite understands that under the--er, the happy circumstances--you +cannot come much to us, not caring naturally to appear any more often +than is necessary in public." The Major adhered rigorously to every +tenet of the old school. + +He had recently presented his daughter with a low, comfortable phaeton +of the sort which, as he explained, the gentlewomen of his day were +accustomed to drive; and Pegasus was learning to adapt herself demurely +to the rôle of a family horse. Joan found this phaeton a great +convenience for shopping and marketing and her rare visiting (she saw +very little of her friends that summer); and in the evening she and +Archie went for long drives about the parks, covering less ground than +they had covered in the ill-fated Lizzie, but making up for this by a +more intimate knowledge of what they passed. + +"It's good to go slowly enough now and then to see the wayside flowers, +and smell the fern, and hear the bird-calls, isn't it?" she said once as +they jogged along. + +"Sure it is! Now and then," replied Archie guardedly. A rising young +business man of the present time could hardly be expected to find +phaetoning an exhilarating means of locomotion. But "anything goes just +now," as he said to himself, happily. + +He was not able to take as many of these drives with her as he should +have liked. The cares of business were beginning to sit upon him with +increasing heaviness. "A man's business has got to grow with his +family," he was fond of saying, importantly; and Joan was left alone +sometimes, even on Saturday afternoons and after supper in the +evenings--those periods sacred in these our States to the uses of +domesticity. + +But she did not complain. She was even, secretly, a little glad, for she +had always enjoyed being alone. There were so many books to be read, +letters to be written, thoughts to be thought in which Archie, for all +his loyal efforts, could not quite share; and there was her music. One +of her step-mother's several wedding presents had been a small grand +piano, as companionable to Joan in this "pasture-time" as a dog is to +some women. + +Archibald, too, loved music. He frequently urged her to play and sing, +and was as proud of her rather indifferent performances as a _maestro_ +of a star-pupil. But he had an innocent, disconcerting habit of patting +time with his foot, or bursting into the air at unexpected moments in a +large, booming tenor that never by any accident quite found the key. +Music was one of the things Joan found herself unable to share with her +husband. + +She objected sometimes to his growing preoccupation with business, on +his own account. He began to look a little thin and fine-drawn; the +typical American husband, she told him reprovingly. + +"You're neglecting your exercise, Archie dear! You never go to the Y. M. +C. A., or play around with the boys any more." + +"Got something better to do," he beamed at her. + +"Goose! But it isn't good for a man never to have any fun at all. 'All +work and no play'--" + +He took her in his arms. "Fun! What do I want with fun?" he exclaimed +quite fiercely, lifting her face to his. But before their lips met, he +let her go. + +"No rough stuff," she heard him admonish himself under his breath. + +He kissed her hand instead.... + +The Darcys too, were spending rather a quiet summer. Now that they had +no débutante daughter in prospect, their names figured leas prominently +in the social column. With his growing avoirdupois, the Major appeared +to be abandoning the one-step in favor of the easy-chair, which was to +be found in greater perfection at home than at the Country Club. If his +bride regretted this lapse into settledness, she showed no signs of it. +Her avoirdupois, also, was getting rather out of hand, despite constant +attention to massage and sporadic attempts at dieting. + +"It ain't how _much_ I eat, seems like--it's _what_ I eat," she said +once plaintively to Joan. "Everything tasty turns to flesh on me; and +God knows, I hate a poor table!" + +But Joan realized that it was not entirely physical inhibitions which +were retiring the Darcys from the social arena. Her step-mother had +delicacy enough to understand that her place was not among Joan's +acquaintance, now that the girl had discovered her history. Joan liked +her the better for it. She was punctiliously careful to invite Effie May +to her house at frequent intervals, and always accepted such invitations +as the other offered in return. The Major, never observant, was quite +unaware that the relations between his wife and daughter had suffered +any change. As he once remarked impersonally, "You and my wife would +naturally find very little in common, excellent creature though she is. +Why should you, indeed? Your antecedents, your early environment, have +been entirely different. And as one grows older, those are the things +that really matter," he added, with a complacency that sat rather oddly +upon him in the circumstances--On the whole, Joan began to feel +distinctly sorry for her step-mother. + +The older people came sometimes to take her for long automobile drives +into the State; expeditions which Joan enjoyed thoroughly. Her father's +imperturbable good manners and Effie May's amiability made them +excellent traveling-companions, proof against all hazards of the road; +tire trouble, bad going, even delayed and poor meals. And they both +treated Joan with a new consideration, oddly wistful on the woman's +part, to which she responded gratefully. + +It shamed her somehow to see how kind the world was to her nowadays; as +if, in following the line of least resistance, she had done something +very commendable indeed. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + + +These long automobile rides familiarized her as nothing else could not +only with the State but with her father. She came to understand and +share his peculiar, proprietary interest in the lovely Kentucky +countryside. He pointed out to her its beauties of wood and hill and +pasture like the owner of some vast estate exhibiting it to visitors, +with a frank and pardonable pride. It is a habit of mind not unusual to +the native of certain localities--notably Virginia and Maryland and +Kentucky; but in her wandering, unimportant old father it seemed to Joan +a little piteous, as if he had sunk his small identity into that of his +great State, content to make its history his history, its glory his. + +"Here," he would say reverently, "is the spot where we made our final +victorious stand against the Indians. Sacred ground, my daughter!" +Or--"This is the place where our women went down to the spring for +water, risking their lives, bless their hearts! because the men could +not be spared from the defense of the stockade. You should thank God +that you are a Kentucky woman!" He sometimes forgot in his enthusiasm +that she had not been, so to speak, born to the purple--though that +fact, as he once explained to her, was merely an accident, due to a +certain miscalculation of dates. + +Joan came to realize in this new intimacy with her father that his +futility was owing in large part to circumstances over which he had no +control: notably the times in which he lived. He had been born a little +too late or perhaps a little too early. There is no need for men of his +type in the piping times of peace; but had his prime chanced to occur +during some convulsed period of the world's history, it is conceivable +that Richard Darcy might have rendered a great account of himself. He +was a born leader of men, with unfortunately little opportunity to +exercise his talent. During the only war that came within his range of +vision (our late unpleasantness with Spain), he had chanced to be +involved with certain trusting friends in a financial situation so acute +that the affairs of the nation had been obliged to stand aside until he +extricated himself; by which time, to his lasting regret, the war was +over. + +He had, of course, no right to his title. It had simply accrued to him +as titles often do accrue to men of his type, particularly in the South; +partly by inheritance, growing as he grew, beginning with a modest +lieutenancy in the State Guards, which had been his one and only taste +of the career for which he had been created. He never spoke of himself +as "Major"; but from the habit of years he had perhaps come to think of +himself so, accepting the unsought honor gracefully as he accepted +whatever else came his way, whether of good or evil. + +It is a pity that he could not have fallen asleep, say, at twenty, in +his clean, brave youth; and awakened in the month of August 1914, ready +for the day's work.... + +The Darcys and Joan were running home after a long trip in the Bluegrass +one evening, slipping along without lights in the glow of an October +aftermath, when at the turn of an unfrequented lane they came suddenly +upon a crowd of people collected about a bridge. The chauffeur brought +the car to an abrupt stop. It was at once surrounded by several men with +handkerchiefs tied over the lower parts of their faces. + +"What the devil--" cried Major Darcy. + +"Highwaymen!" gasped Joan. + +A man with a pistol in his hand said laconically, "No, we ain't +highwaymen, lady. We wasn't expectin' comp'ny, but sence you've come, +you'll hev to stay. Set right where you are and don't look. We'll be +through this job in a minute." + +"Nonsense! Let us pass at once," said the Major indignantly. "Drive on +over the bridge, James!" + +"Better not, James," drawled the laconic one. "We're usin' that bridge +ourselves just now." + +The chauffeur hesitated, walling his eyes in fright. Joan, who was +seated beside him, reached for the ignition switch to start the engine, +but turned on instead the lighting-switch. The sudden glare of the +headlights revealed some twenty or thirty roughly dressed men of the +farmer class, and in their midst, bound hand and foot with rope, a +cowering negro. + +"My God! It's a lynching," quavered Effie May. + +The Major had by this time collected his startled wits. + +With a sudden oath he jerked open the door and got out. + +"What are you up to here, men? Don't touch me, sir!"--this to one who +had laid a hand on his sleeve. + +There was a quality in her father's voice that sent a thrill through +Joan. She had never heard it before. The man removed his hand. + +"We're just stringin' up a nigger for the best of reasons," he +explained. "'Tain't no business of yourn, stranger." + +"I'll make it my business," said Richard Darcy sternly. "You're not +going to disgrace this State while _I_ am here!" + +The effect was histrionic; and yet Joan realized that her father was not +blustering. He meant it. + +There came a wail from beyond that made her shiver, the cry of a man in +mortal terror. "I ain't never done it, 'fore Gawd I ain't never tetched +that woman. Oh, Boss! O-o-oh, Boss!" It was like the cry of a damned +soul to God. "_Don'_ you let 'em git me!" + +There was an agony of hope in the appeal, as of one who sees at hand +unexpected deliverance. + +The Major responded to it, speaking in quiet reassurance as she had +sometimes heard him speak, years ago, when she had wakened out of some +nightmare in the little bed beside her parents'. + +"All right, boy. They shan't get you," + +He strode through the crowd, putting men out of his way right and left. +In sheer surprise they let him pass till he reached the negro, who +cringed to him, catching at his hand. + +Then a voice cried out, "Here, we're wastin' time. Muzzle the old boy!" + +The Major turned and stared magnificently in the direction of his voice, +nettled by the term "old boy." + +"Evidently," he remarked, "the gentleman does not know who I am!" + +Joan was seized with an hysterical desire to laugh. At such a moment the +bombast of it was too much. Suppose they should inquire +minstrel-fashion, "Well, then, Mr. Johnsing, who _are_ you?" + +But the crowd was not as used to her father as she was. They hesitated, +impressed by his hauteur, his fine clothes, the waiting limousine. They +stirred uneasily. A voice near her murmured, "Mebbe it's the Governor!" + +Richard Darcy took instant advantage of the impression he had created, +and began to speak. It was not the first time she had heard him make a +speech, for he was frequently called upon to aid some friend in turning +the tide of political battle. The Major, indeed, had rather a reputation +for assisting his friends into office--It was typical of Joan that she +listened critically despite her thumping heart; that she watched what +she could see of the faces about her, picked out by the lights of the +car; that she missed no expression on the gray, working features of the +negro, darting wild glances about him like a newly caged wolf she had +seen once at the Zoo, frantically eying the people who stood to stare at +it. + +Her father's voice poured out in a golden flood, running the gamut from +anger to gentle suasion. It was the voice of the natural orator, which +depends very little for its effect upon words. Once, passing a negro +church, Joan had heard just such a voice rising and falling within, and +though not a word of the sermon reached her, after a few moments she had +been almost ready to sway and moan with the congregation as it muttered, +"Yas, good Lawd!" "Be mussiful to us po' sinners" "Come, Jesus, come +down and take me home!" + +Some such effect began to be visible on the Major's audience. There were +stirrings and murmurings that suggested applause. He rose to them. The +eloquence that lies so close under the skin of Southern-born +men--certainly of all Southern-born men of Irish stock--came to the +surface and flowered. He showed this handful of rough farmers what it +should mean to them to be natives of so great and glorious a +commonwealth ("'Commonwealth'--what a splendid word, my friends!"); +wearing in her bosom all the riches of the earth, nourishing at that +bosom a race of supermen ("And superwomen, my friends! superwomen!"); +carrying in her womb the greatness of the country's future. + +"Statesmen we give to the world--law-makers, not lawbreakers! Soldiers +we give, not midnight marauders and assassins!" (If he borrowed freely +from a certain greater Kentucky orator who speaks only with his pen, the +Major was unaware of plagiarism.) "Show me the fools who say Kentuckians +are lawless? We make our laws as we need them, gentlemen--and we obey +them! Perhaps the greatest of our laws is this: 'Never kick a dog when +it is down.'" His voice sank to a warm and personal friendliness. "I ask +you, gentlemen--is there any dog more down than the negro? It is not his +fault that he is here where he is no longer wanted. It is not his fault +that he brought with him when he came the ways and the intelligence of +the jungle. It is ours, perhaps, that he has kept them. We shall never +tame the negro by proving ourselves savages!--My friends, you and I here +in Kentucky pride ourselves on breaking our horses and our dogs by means +of kindness. Shall we do less for our unfortunate black brother?" + +A voice in the crowd remarked, "_You_ can claim kin with him ef you want +to, Jedge--_I_ ain't!" + +A ripple of laughter greeted this sally, and Joan's tension relaxed. She +felt intuitively that a crowd which laughs does not kill. + +While he spoke, her father had more than once caught her eye over the +heads of the others, urgently, meaningly. Now he nodded to her. Joan +suddenly caught the message he was trying to convey. + +"He wants us to go to him. Quick, James! Start your engine. Quietly!" + +In his nervousness, however, the chauffeur started the car with a jerk, +and many faces moved in their direction. The Major turned on the full +tide of his voice, and rose to his climax. + +"My friends," he asked solemnly, "have you thought to take into your +hands the privilege of the Most High, who saith, 'Vengeance is mine'? +Perhaps you have called vengeance 'justice'? Even so there is a finer +thing than justice. There is mercy. And there is something we may give +even greater than mercy--something to which each of us poor souls has a +human right. I refer, gentlemen, to the benefit of the doubt. + +"Some day every one of us here present--who knows how soon?--must stand +before the Judgment Seat, cowering as this wretch is cowering now. And +what we dare to ask then will be perhaps not justice, nor even +mercy--but simply the benefit of the doubt." + +Tears came into Joan's eyes. It seemed to her that for a moment her +father had forgotten his purpose there, and was speaking not for another +but for himself.... + +His mind, however, had not left the business in hand. After a slight and +telling pause, he said in his ordinary conversational voice, "Now I am +going to take this negro with me, gentlemen, if you don't mind. I have +at hand a safe conveyance, as you see. I pledge you my word to deliver +him in person to the sheriff of this county." + +He beckoned to Joan. + +The spell was broken, and pandemonium reigned. "Look out--he's makin' a +get-away!" + +"Aw, what's the use? Leave him go!" + +"By God, it was _my sister_--" + +"Let me at him"-- + +"The gen'leman's right, I tell you!"-- + +And penetrating all a laconic drawl, "Stranger, leggo that nigger, and +leggo quick." + +Joan, on tiptoe, saw her father's head and beckoning hand above the +crowd. + +"Go on, James!" she said tensely. "Never mind if you run them down--" + +"Stop!" gasped Effie May. "Don't you see those pistols? They mean to +shoot!" + +The terrified James did not know which to obey. + +"Here, give me the wheel," ordered Joan. "Be quiet, Effie May!" Into her +mind came scornfully one of her father's sayings, "The canaille are +invariably timid." + +Effie May suddenly screamed again. "They're going to _shoot_!" + +And as if at a signal for which they had been waiting, two shots barked +out. + +The Major, still finely erect, thrust the negro behind him, and at the +same moment Joan sprang out of the car to go to his defense; two +instinctive acts which proved them father and child, and also proved +indubitably the Darcy right to pride of race. + +His steady voice reached her again as she struggled through the milling +crowd; "You poor fools, look to what your folly has already led you! +You've shot the wrong man. You've shot _me_!" + +There was a second of appalled silence. Then a man muttered "Golly!" and +turned and fled. His panic was contagious. One after another, by twos +and threes, the lynchers melted hastily away. When Joan reached her +father he was seated on the ground, leaning for support against the +bridge railing, alone except for the shackled negro. + +He still had command of the situation. "Take my penknife, Dollykins, and +set this boy free so that he can run," he ordered. + +Joan cut the ropes, sick with relief. He was so calm that she thought he +must have been bluffing the crowd. + +"Dad! Dad! You're not really hurt, then?" + +He smiled up at her. "Not hurt, my child. Killed," he said, dramatic to +the last.... + +The negro did not run. In return for his defender's heroism, he +performed a small act of heroism himself--not so small either, perhaps, +considering that his life depended upon what use he made of the next few +hours. + +"I'll tote him to de car, lady," he offered, pantingly; and delayed +further to give the paralyzed chauffeur instructions as to where to find +the nearest doctor. + +Joan sat on the floor of the limousine with her father's head in her +lap, only half aware of his labored, fluttering breath, of the blood +upon her dress, of her step-mother's wild pleadings with him just to +look at her, just to say one word to his Effie May, who loved him-- + +She was strangely exalted. Her mind seemed to have slipped into a region +of consciousness where things were made suddenly clear to her, troubling +questions answered, doubts set forever aside. + +"A gentleman," she kept repeating to herself. "A gentleman!" + +It seemed to her in that moment a great thing to have been born a +gentleman, even if one became nothing more; to know that whatever the +fortunes of life, one would be able to meet them gallantly and unafraid, +because of a something within stronger than personal will or habit: the +sum of the wills and habits of many ancestors. She was sorry for the +_canaille_, the Effie Mays, who had no such inner power to rely upon.... + +As they carried him into a doctor's office, Richard Darcy's eyes opened. +They passed the face of his frantic wife unseeing, and came to rest upon +Joan in some anxiety. + +"You all right, Dollykins? Must not allow--mere trifle like +this--upset--" + +"Nothing shall upset me, Father," she said, smiling at him. + +"Children so necessary--family traditions--" + +She bent close to him. "My son is going to be proud to carry on the +family traditions, dear." + +His face cleared. "Good girl!" There was a little bubbling breath. "I +promised Mary--" + +But Joan never learned what promise it was that he had made, and +doubtless broken, to his Mary. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + + +Joan herself, like other self-reliant people, sometimes made promises +which she was unable to keep. She had made such a one to her father. +Despite her best efforts, the fact and manner of his death did manage to +upset her, disastrously. + +The day came not long afterwards when for hours, years, they seemed to +her, Joan was aware of nothing but pain, and of the fact that miserable, +terrified Archie must somehow be got out of the way before she lost +control of herself. She thought that when she could get enough breath to +do it, she would ask him to go down town and bring her some ice-cream or +something; but when she did open her lips they emitted, entirely without +permission, a queer sound that was somewhere between a yelp and a croak. + +"Goodness! This is no way for a gentleman to behave," she said to +herself oddly; and must have spoken aloud, for the voice of Ellen Neal +responded. + +"There, there, my lamb! Yell all you want. You ain't no gentleman, thank +goodness! but just a poor little girl who's got a right to holler all +she likes. That's _one_ right the men-folks ain't going to deny us and +get away with it--not them!" + +Ellen as she spoke glared truculently at the doctor. It was not the +first accouchement at which she had assisted, and at such moments she +became feministic almost to the point of violence. Even Archie found it +safer to remain out of reach of her accusing eye. + +But long, very long afterwards, Ellen herself admitted him once more to +the Presence, for the sake of the burden he carried--a subdued, queerly +gentle Ellen, with all the acerbity gone from voice and manner, and in +its place something rather beautiful. It was motherhood that glowed in +her, had any one cared to notice; motherhood come by vicariously, as +Ellen Neal came by all the loveliness in life. + +"See, my lamb," she murmured, bending over the bed. "Open them pretty +eyes and look who's here! Come close, Mr. Archie, and show her the +present you've brought her. Quiet, now!--she ain't up to much. It's a +surprise, Joie. Open your eyes and look!" + +It was a surprise, indeed. Joan, by great effort, managed to focus her +gaze on Archie's burden. She shut her eyes quickly, and opened them +again. They were still there; not one, but two little wrinkled, fuzzy +heads. + +"Can you beat it?" demanded Archie, shakily, "Some little present, eh?" +He held them out to her. + +Joan's lips moved, twitching. "From a Friend," was what she said; and +Archie, recognizing a jest on sight, let out such a roar of joy that the +twins awoke with pin-prick wails, and a nurse came running, and he was +thrust once more into outer darkness. + +There a message was brought to him. "Your wife says why don't you +telegraph President Roosevelt about it?" + +And literal Archie did so.... + +But this was the last laughter heard in the house of Blair for many a +weary week. Twins require more strength for their bearing and rearing +than Joan, taken so unawares, was able to provide. The Major's final act +of gallantry cost a good deal in the way of human life, which may, or +may not, have been of more value than the life he saved. + +Afterwards, when she was able to think again, Joan sometimes wondered +whether his death was not perhaps an even more futile thing than his +life had been; yet she would not have had it otherwise. + +His widow had caused to be erected to his memory the finest granite +monolith obtainable for money, bearing the inscription, "Greater love +hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends"; +and Joan, after her first startled distaste for the grandiloquence +passed, was able to appreciate how deeply the memorial must gratify the +proud spirit of a Darcy, if it lingered near enough to know. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + + Through the dim corridors, the silent halls + Of Yesterday, the nuns move, whispering + Their rosary. Without, a robin calls + A drowsy blessing to his little mate, + For it is late, + And chapel aisles are filled with peace and prayer. + And Christ is there. + + Ah, dreams that haunt these keys of ivory--! + _Et verbum caro factum est_, they sing, + And lo! the years are as a day to me. + I kneel among the quiet ones again + To lay the pain, + The joy of life, where light and shadow meet + At Jesus' feet. + + +Some time earlier, during the period when girl-emotions translate +themselves into verse as naturally as bird-emotions translate themselves +into song, Joan had composed these lines, with the odd prescience that +frequently came to her when she "took her pen in hand." She had stepped +aside from a heated game of handball one day to jot them down; and her +play-fellows, evincing no particular surprise, had murmured to each +other, "Leave Joan alone. She's writing Poetry." For poetry is as much a +part of convent school-life as is handball. + +Now she was back among "the quiet ones" again, fulfilling her own +prophecy, come to lay her burden of pain and joy, if not at Jesus' feet, +at least in the safekeeping of his handmaidens. In her plain black +frock, such as convent girls wear, with her hair down in a braid and a +small apron tied about her waist, to protect her skirt from +embroidery-floss, the nuns found it hard to believe it was Joan Blair +who had come back to them out of the world, and not Joan Darcy. Only +this was a Joan who played harder than her younger self had ever played, +entering into the gaiety of the school, the basket-ball, the charades, +the skating-matches, the fancy-dress impromptus, with a feverish +eagerness which saddened the good ladies to see. Strange, vivid, +restless young creature--what she had learned of life in the short while +she had been away from them! Love, motherhood, and loss--the loss that +is saddest of all losses to women, be they wives or maids or +_religieuses_. While they in their silent corridors and hidden gardens +had listened to month after quiet month rung away by the bells, praying, +dreaming, working; tending the young life about them into blossom, +sometimes carrying with candles one of their number back to a still +place beyond the children's playground, sometimes--not often +now--receiving into their ranks one who had done with the world's ways +even before she came to know them. Truly "the quiet ones," blessed with +the peace of those who resign their wills to the will of God. + +Joan, gazing into their serene, pure, almost childlike faces, envied +them from her heart; but, being Joan, she asked herself wonderingly how +they could be so sure it was the will of God to which they resigned +themselves. Intelligent, fine-natured women, deliberately turning their +backs on life, deliberately closing eyes and ears to what went on in the +street just outside their cloister, lest it distract them from +contemplation of their immortal souls--Joan shook her head sharply; and +putting a veil over her hair, slipped into the chapel, where a voice +behind the cloister-screen was repeating the rosary of the Sacred Heart: + + "Oh, sacred heart of Jesus, burning with love for us, + Inflame our hearts with love for Thee." + +The beautiful voice rose and fell in almost passionate cadence, as if it +were pleading. It ceased abruptly; and another, older voice took up the +words, with mystic tenderness. There was a faint fragrance in the +place--indeed throughout the old building--of incense and dying roses, +which Joan always called to herself "the odor of sanctity." It came back +to her sometimes poignantly in the most unexpected places. + +A very old lay-sister, in a white coif and shoes that creaked a trifle, +pottered about among the statues of the saints, arranging small lamps +and vases of flowers, always dropping as she passed the altar a +business-like little curtsey. Now and then a child with a veil over her +head would slip in at the door, and genuflect, and sink to her knees for +a moment's prayer. Sunlight streamed in, multi-colored, through ruby and +purple and amber glass, across the white marble Christ who stood with +hands outstretched and head bowed, suffering little children to come +unto Him.... + +Joan, who had been reading Rénan (a fact which would have certainly +caused her expulsion from that place had it been known), quoted to +herself: + + "In our bustling civilization, the memory of the life of + Galilee has been like the perfume of another world." + +It seemed to her one of the true miracles that it should indeed have +persisted through our bustling civilization, through persecution and +indifference, through crass hysterical religiosity, even to this day; if +only in such places as her convent school, and little country churches +here and there, and in the homes of the very poor. That lovely, +pastoral, gentle life of Galilee, exquisite as the name itself--who +could not have been good in Galilee? + +"If Archie had lived then, he would have followed Christ," thought Joan +suddenly. "Followed him, and fought for him, too. And he'd never have +let the Jews get hold of him!" + +It was the first time she had thought of her husband in many days.... + +Archie's letters came with faithful regularity, but he was one of the +personalities who do not carry well by letter. He informed her that he +missed her, but she was not to hurry home on his account; that Ellen was +keeping down the grocer-bill nicely; that the new man he had put on the +road wasn't doing well and he thought of putting Johnny Carmichael in +his place; that one of the water-pipes had burst and made a spot on the +wall, but nothing to fret about; and that if she needed more money be +sure to let him know. Or words to that effect. + +Archie, somehow, was never quite in the picture. She was better able to +reconstruct her lost girlhood without him. + +And Archie understood. It was he who had suggested the Convent when +Joan's doctor admitted himself dissatisfied with her condition, her slow +return to normality. + +"You've got a peculiarly sensitive nervous organism to deal with here," +the doctor said. "It takes very little to throw such natures off the +balance. You say she never speaks of her babies at all? I don't like +that! I'd rather have her crying about all over the place." + +"So would I," said poor Archie. "Then she'd cry on me, and I could +comfort her. Now I don't dare!" + +"I wouldn't," advised the doctor, frankly. "Better let her alone." + +So Archie, out of the wisdom of his love, wrote secretly to the nuns and +asked them to invite her to the Convent for awhile; and because of the +tragedy involved, the good ladies waived their rule of never permitting +married women to live in the community. They welcomed her casually, as +if her coming were no strange thing, gave her work to do, made her +useful running errands and taking the smaller girls about; for in a +religious community no one is ever idle. And Joan proved Archie's wisdom +by gradually losing her tenseness, her frantic clutching at amusement, +and growing daily in strength and poise until at last she was able to +enjoy again solitude and thought, two things of which she had for some +time been afraid. + +Indeed, Archie's experiment was almost too successful; for the simple, +orderly routine of the Convent was so soothing to her that she dreaded +the idea of leaving it. Days slipped into weeks; and still she postponed +the thought of going back to her empty house, to Effie May's +uncontrolled mourning, to that nursery which had been so happily +prepared for the little occupants who never occupied it. + +She was frightened sometimes to realize how utterly she seemed able to +forget her husband when he was not with her. If Archie was rather +frightened, too, he never admitted it, even to himself. After all, Joan +was his wife; and in his simple creed wives were bound to love their +husbands, else how could they remain wives? + +"She's had an awful shock," he reminded Ellen, who was growing restive. +"We've got to give her plenty of time to get over it." + +"Humph! and what about you? I suppose you ain't had a good deal of a +shock yourself?" muttered the old woman, savage with sympathy. "Wasn't +you bringing home toys and truck every day of the world, trains and +dolls and I don't know what all--and them not a week old yet? Your top +chiffoneer drawer's full of toys this minute." + +"Better give them away to the children in the neighborhood before she +sees them." + +"No such thing! I'll be savin' 'em for the next," said Ellen, +stoutly.... + +Oddly enough, Joan was presently restored to her husband and her duty +through the medium of no less a person than Eduard Desmond. + +She was chaperoning some of the younger girls in town one day, when she +met him on the street. She was surprised by the encounter, for she had +not known he was in Washington; and she bowed uncertainly, expecting him +to be a little embarrassed. + +But he stopped, and held out his hand with evident pleasure. "Mrs. +Blair! you?" he exclaimed. "What wonderful luck brings you to +Washington? and where are you stopping?" + +Joan briefly explained. + +"Then," he said with a notable accession of eagerness, "Mr. Blair is not +with you?" + +Some long-slumbering imp of malice awoke and stirred in Joan. His +expression as he looked her up and down was unmistakable. Evidently +matrimony had detracted nothing from her in his eyes. On the contrary. + +"No, Mr. Blair is not with me," she replied demurely. "I am on a +vacation. Why should one carry a husband about on a vacation?" + +This was Longmeadow language, the native tongue of Mr. Desmond. + +"Why, indeed?" he murmured. "And when am I to come to see you?" + +"I'm not sure you are to come at all. We're not allowed masculine +callers at the Convent, I think; are we, dear?" she asked the young girl +nearest to her. + +"Oh, yes, Mrs. Blair!--on Wednesday afternoons, if they're brothers or +cousins or anything like that," replied the child shyly. + +Eduard smiled. "I am not a cousin or a brother--fortunately--but perhaps +I may be called 'something like that!'--Next Wednesday afternoon, then?" + +"I'm not really sure that I shall be able to see you," she demurred. + +"I am!" replied Eduard calmly; and, lifting his hat, he passed on. + +He proved himself a true prophet. Joan could not deny herself the bitter +satisfaction of seeing at what a small fire she had managed so to scorch +her young wings. + +He had been waiting half an hour in the convent parlor when she came to +him, however; and half an hour in a convent parlor is an ordeal few +forget. It was a large, bleak room divided midway by a grille, on the +inner side of which sat a lay-sister, knitting. The other side was left +for the reception of male relatives and connections; and a tongue-tied, +uneasy lot they were, slipping about on the horsehair sofas, staring +furtively at the undecorative saints who adorned the walls, conducting +their conversation obviously with a view to the other side of the +grille. + +"For heaven's sake, get me out of this!" murmured Desmond as Joan +approached. "I feel as if the eye of God were on me constantly!" + +"It's only the eye of Sister Veronica," reassured Joan, "and more her +ear than her eye, I fancy." + +"You don't mean that she can hear what we are saying, in there?" + +"I've been told there's a sounding-board concealed about this room +somewhere. It may not be true, of course; but it's wonderful how much +does get back to the Convent from the parlor." + +Eduard shuddered. "There's goose-flesh up and down my spine! Do come out +for a walk somewhere." + +She shook her head, smiling. "Can't be done! But of course you haven't +anything to say to me that Sister Veronica shouldn't hear." + +"Haven't I, just?" he muttered. + +The imp of malice stirred in her again. She asked softly, "What, for +instance?" + +He gave her a quick look, glanced toward the grille, and plunged, albeit +in a very low voice. + +"For one thing I want to tell you how lovely you've grown!" + +"Louder, please?" said Joan, "I missed that." + +He repeated it, with additions. "And you need not pretend you did not +hear me, either, you witch. What's happened to you, Joan? I always knew +you'd be a wonderful creature some day, but already!--Those exquisite +shadows under the eyes, the hollow of your cheek, your lips--What I'd +give to paint you now, my dear! Only that it would waste our time +together. How much time have you, by the way? For me, I mean?" + +"You find me improved, then?" she enquired, demurely. + +"Improved! I find you--never mind what I find you! There's a subtlety, a +fascination--But I can't express it." + +"There must be a subtlety indeed if _you_ can't express it," she +commented; and added, "How is Mrs. Rossiter?" + +If she expected to disconcert him, she was disappointed. He informed her +at length as to the health, appearance, and conjugal felicity of Mrs. +Rossiter. + +"They're actually pulling it off," he said interestedly. "They're making +a go of it. I've always had the theory that once a divorcée always a +divorcée--the old-fashioned gentlewoman is more to my taste. Divorce +always seems to me so--so unnecessary--But in this case it appears I am +mistaken, and nobody is happier to admit it. They positively fancy each +other, Philemon and Baucis, all that sort of thing!--By the way, I had +no idea you had made such friends with May. You gave her my bracelet, it +seems. Cruel of you, Joan!" + +"Did it hurt your feelings?" she murmured, dimpling. + +"Oh, frightfully. How did you have the heart? She positively gloated +over me." + +"Father would never have allowed me to accept anything so handsome from +a passing acquaintance. One had to do something with it, you see, so--" + +"Passing acquaintance!" he interrupted, reproachfully. "Surely I was +more to you than that? Our evening under the beech-tree--shall I ever +forget it?" + +Joan, paling a little, remarked, "Sister Veronica appears interested." + +"Damn!" muttered Eduard, and shortly took his leave. But first he gave +her a note from Mrs. Desmond urging her to dine with them on any evening +she cared to name. + + "Betty is abroad," wrote Mrs. Desmond, "and I know you have no + heart for gaieties just now, so there will be only the four of + us, a family party." + +Joan hesitated. + +"Of course we all realize that you are not in a mood for gaiety," said +Eduard with a sympathetic glance at her black. "But I _must_ see you +somehow!--and among old friends, who understand--" + +To ward off any mention of things that hurt, she hastily agreed to dine +with the Desmonds on the following Saturday. + +Sister Veronica, (who happened to be quite deaf) wondered what could +have occurred to give the poor child such an expression of--not exactly +pleasure. It was more like triumph. She would have made no sense of what +Joan was muttering under her breath, Salome-wise, as she left the +parlor: "Off with his head! Oh, off with his head, _and step on it_!" + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + + +Not only the older girls, but more than one of the nuns, made some +excuse to come into Joan's little room when she was dressing that +Saturday evening. The rumor had gone forth that their charge was +beginning to take interest in worldly affairs again, and the good ladies +congratulated each other. While they themselves had forsworn the +pleasures of the world, they were quite aware that for some these had +their uses, if only as an anodyne. They took, too, a quite feminine +pleasure in Joan's frock, a simple black chiffon with transparent +sleeves, which she had cut out a little at the neck to make it suitable +for the evening. + +"I suppose," said the Reverend Mother, making her turn round and round +for inspection, "that this is what they call in the world a décolleté +basque, is it not? And very becoming, too! Only"--she added with the +frank conventual innocence that occasionally startled Joan, "does not +such a display of the person tend to encourage lust of the eye, my +child?" + +Joan laughed a little. "Let us hope so, Mother!" she murmured. "We +strive to please"--a remark which the old lady trusted that she had +misunderstood. + +Her striving on that occasion was by no means in vain. There seems +something peculiarly alluring to the masculine taste (as women of the +oldest profession in the world are quite aware) about black. Joan, with +nothing to relieve her somberness except a cluster of white gardenias at +her breast, would have held the gaze of any man who saw her as surely as +she held that of Eduard and of Betty's father, who had hitherto not +known his daughter's friend and openly regretted his missed opportunity. +She was one of the women whom motherhood, even denied and thwarted +motherhood, gives a momentary poignant beauty, of the sort that Leonardo +loved to paint. Betty's father was indeed so regretful of his missed +opportunity that it was with some difficulty Eduard secured the +tête-à-tête upon which he had counted. + +"At last!" he sighed when he had finally manoeuvered her into the +conservatory to admire orchids. "I began to think this was going to be +another wasted hour, like my ghastly experience of the monastic +life.--Do you realize, my dear, that I am entitled to a little praise +and comforting on your part?" + +"Just why?" + +"Why? Why, because of the discretion, the magnanimity, in fact the utter +damn-fool quixotism of my late conduct! At Longmeadow, you know. Leaving +you--when I might have stayed!" + +Joan was rather startled. She had not expected him to carry the war into +the enemy's country to such an extent as this. + +"That makes twice," he murmured, leaning over her, "that I've let you go +unscathed, my dear. When you left school--and when you came back to me. +But--Fate is too strong for us. You're not expecting me, I hope, to let +you go a third time?" + +"In just about five minutes," she smiled, glancing at her wristwatch. +"I've ordered my taxi for ten o'clock." + +He gave a little exclamation, and caught her hand. "Don't pretend to be +so cool and indifferent, you witch! I know you better than that. +You--cool and indifferent! Have I forgotten that night under the +beech-tree? Have you?" + +Joan suddenly blazed out at him, white with anger. "No! I've not +forgotten that. Nor afterwards." + +"Afterwards?" + +"Will you be good enough to tell me in plain language what was your idea +in running away?" + +He eyed her appreciatively. He liked a touch of temper in a woman. It +gave them a zest your amiable creatures lack. + +"Why, Beautiful, what else as a man of honor could I do? A thing like +that doesn't stand still, you know! The flare dies out--or it goes +further. Our flare would not have died out." + +Her lip curled. "And as 'a man of honor' it never occurred to you that +we might preserve our flare, as it were, in marriage?" + +He sighed ruefully. "Oh, yes, it did! That temptation, too, I had to +fight. For you see, my dear, I don't believe in marriage. I've seen too +much of it (vicariously). Believe me, it preserves no flares! It +quenches them. The thing's as fatal as death--though not, thank God, as +inevitable! I will not put a relation I value to a test it will not +bear," he explained, evidently in earnest. "What!--tie a creature of +spirit and fire like yourself to the duty of forever loving one man, +obeying one man, giving yourself into his hands to break at his leisure? +Can you think of any surer way of killing love than to make a duty of +it? 'Duty'--the most hideous, cold, Puritanical word in our hideous, +cold, Puritanical language! The French put it better. _Devoir_ suggests +something that is by no means cold. Therefore, dearest girl"--he kissed +her hands--"let me pay you my _devoirs_ always, and be sure that I shall +never trouble you with anything so unpleasant as a 'duty.'--Why, suppose +I had taken you then, bound you hand and foot to me by law--think how +bored we should be with each other already! It would be from me you +would be taking a vacation, instead of from the unfortunate Blair." +(Joan winced.) "As it is--" + +"Well?" she prompted, veiling her eyes. "As it is--Eduard?" + +He drew her toward him with little inarticulate murmurs. She took a +fleeting glance at the face approaching hers. It was flushed, the eyes a +trifle glazed as if he had been drinking. He breathed hard. + +"How unbecoming it is to them!" she thought, but without resisting. (The +reader who happens to like Joan would do well to skip this paragraph. It +is not our heroine at her best.) + +"As it is," said Eduard rather hoarsely, "we have each other for all +time, my Beautiful! Nothing to bind us, nothing to hold us, except our +sacred--er--" + +"Flare?" prompted Joan, helpfully. + +But he was not paying his usual attention to words just then. He lifted +her face to his, and closed his eyes the better to savor what was +coming.... + +An unexpected sound caused him to open them again. It was laughter, +issuing from the very lips he was about to enjoy; not hysterical, +nervous laughter such as might have been pardoned under the +circumstances, but cool and sweet, and unimpassioned as the tinkling of +ice in a pitcher. + +"You're not really trying to warm it up and serve it over again?" +protested Joan, as she extricated herself from his embrace. "How absurd! +I thought you were too much of an artist for that. And at your age, +too!" + +She sauntered back to the others, still laughing over her shoulder. He +did not follow. + +Which may be said to have been the end of Eduard Desmond, so far as this +chronicle is concerned.... + +But it was also the end of what Joan had disloyally spoken of to him as +her vacation. The word stuck in her memory, and she was ashamed of it. +Her heart yearned toward Archie. + +The nuns bade her a delighted farewell; and all the way home she made +amends for her long neglect of him by thinking of her husband +constantly. By contrast with Eduard's smooth hair, his slim hands, and +well-modulated, expressive voice, Archie appeared to her the very +epitome of manliness. She idealized his defects into beauties, big ears, +clumsiness, and all. She remembered with a thrill how easily he carried +her upstairs when she was tired, how he went tiptoeing squeakily about +the house in the morning for fear of waking her, whispering in tones +that would have roused the dead--Blessed, funny old Archie! She could +hardly wait for the sight of him. + +Yet when she did see him, through the car-window, watching the platform +for her appearance as tensely as a terrier watches a rathole, Joan +shrank back with a faint gasp. He was looking quite appallingly dapper, +with shiny new shoes and a Derby hat--an article of wear not designed +for people with badly adjusted ears; and his mouth hung slightly open in +his eagerness, showing the infantile front teeth, through which issued +(she could almost hear it) a sort of a tuneful hissing, as was his way +in moments of emotion, just to show that he was not nervous or excited +in the least. + +Joan shrank back, the last person to leave the train. And as she passed +a mirror, catching a glimpse of her pale face within it she whispered +piteously, "Oh, Joan Darcy, what have you done?" + + + + +CHAPTER XLV + + +For the modern woman there lies, fortunately, a life between the two +extremes of domesticity and frivolity, both of which Joan had tried and +found wanting. Or rather she had not found domesticity wanting so much +as temporary--a period of tranquil suspense, as it were, leading up to +an inevitable climax which had somehow failed to come off. Even had her +babies lived, it is to be doubted whether Joan could have long satisfied +herself with domesticity pure and simple; and she could no more resume +it now than a cocoon may be resumed by a former occupant which has +sprouted wings. + +As for frivolity, plenty of that offered itself to a young matron with a +charming house and a husband who was generally spoken of as a rising +young business man. ("Rising," Archie certainly was; he had to be, to +keep up with his rising expenditures.) + +But Joan asked perhaps too much of frivolity. She had been heard to +remark that "nothing made the social game possible except flirtation and +real talk; neither of which were to be had in Louisville by people who +valued their reputations"; a rather sweeping comment, of the sort which +soon made Joan's tongue a trifle over-famous. Simple, unexacting folk +who liked a good dinner with a game of cards afterwards for modest +stakes, and now and then a little dancing with each other's spouses, +just to keep in touch with the new steps, began to be rather afraid of +young Mrs. Blair. And Joan was equally afraid of them. She had a morbid +suspicion that dullness might be catching. + +There was something appalling to her, too, in what has been somewhere +called "the infinite littleness of social life." It seemed to have a +strangely flattening effect upon its devotees--promoting some, demoting +others, all to the same unstimulating level, while the wheels within +wheels shifted and reformed kaleidoscopically. These wheels within these +wheels puzzled Joan. "Climbers," such as her step-mother, she was able +to understand and even to sympathize with. It seemed to her quite +natural and thoroughly American for water to seek a higher level than +its own. That was merely progress, merely self-respect made visible. To +"get on" appeared a quite legitimate ambition; but to "get in"--that was +another matter. Snobbery, that word of many interpretations, meant to +Joan the extreme form of self-confessed vulgarity. + +"If it were friends they were after, I could understand," she said to +Emily Carmichael. "Everybody wants friends--we're all lonely. But you +have got to select your real friends one at a time, not in assorted +clumps, like bananas. And one's real friends so rarely happen to be +friends with each other--you've noticed that? Why this passion for +organizing ourselves into group-formation, anyway?" + +"For purposes of offense and defense," explained Emily. "So that we may +leave the Mrs. Websters out, and let the Joan Darcys in, of course." + +They had been discussing Joan's near neighbor, a well-bred, +sweet-mannered, adaptable young woman who had recently laid siege to the +town, and with whom Joan was forming one of those propinquity +friendships which are destined not to last. None of Mrs. Webster's +friendships appeared to last. She had used acquaintance after +acquaintance gracefully as a stepping-stone to higher things, leaving, +however, not a single enemy behind her. It was the fashion in the +various circles through which she had passed to say how charming Mrs. +Webster was, even after she seemed done with them. And now, through +Joan, she was laying tactful but so far unsuccessful siege to the +Jabberwocks; cleverness (in moderation) having become quite the smart +thing nowadays. + +"It is not our massive intellects which attract her, however," commented +Emily. "It is--well, modesty forbids me to say just what it is. The sign +_verboten_ is to some natures as a red rag to a bull. They simply must +have it to play with." + +"Well, but why should anybody be _verboten_ to Kathy Webster?" defended +Joan. "She's charming, and perfectly intelligent, and unmistakably a +lady--which is more than one can say with confidence of some of our most +indefatigable social leaders. Look at Mrs. Gunther, for +instance!--didn't you tell me her father used to deliver meat at your +door out of his own cart?" + +"Excellent meat it was, too. Father says we have never had a decent +butcher since." + +"And lo, what house more exclusive than theirs?" + +"Naturally! It has to be. People like that seem to develop a sort of +protective instinct which guards them from any possible contact with +vulgarity until such time as they shall have accumulated enough +refinement to be immune. Not for them the company of any chance newcomer +like Mrs. Webster! They have to be careful." + +"But shouldn't you think they'd have a sort of fellow-feeling for the +new arrivals?" + +"Dear me, no! What's the good of attaining a pinnacle if you're going to +share it with somebody who might push you off?" + +Mrs. Webster's pursuit of Joan was not entirely opportunism. There was a +good deal of admiration in it, mixed with a sort of malice which the +larger nature had difficulty in comprehending. Joan found herself +entered most unwillingly into an undignified petty rivalry with her +neighbor. If she entertained some of her friends at luncheon without +Mrs. Webster, the other instantly retaliated by giving a luncheon +herself without Joan, sending in dessert and decorations afterwards to +press home the point. If the Blair house in Spring put out new awnings, +the Webster house erupted not only into awnings but into flower-boxes as +well, with a corresponding air of triumph in its mistress. If Joan +received some invitation which the other did not, there arose between +them a slight, unmistakable coolness; whereas, if the contrary occurred, +Mrs. Webster became modest and cordial again. + +Yet when this unpleasant rivalry lay dormant, the two had many a +friendly, neighborly time together over their sewing and their +gardening; and once when Joan was taken suddenly ill the other showed +herself genuinely kind, quick with womanly help and sympathy. + +Joan could never quite make up her mind whether it was the pettiness of +Society which makes the Mrs. Websters, or the Mrs. Websters who make the +pettiness of Society. In any case, she lost what little taste she had +for a purely social career. It was not good enough. + +And so she turned the pent-up energies of her nature into those +activities which are summed up nowadays under the general title of +Clubwork. Investigations, commissions, agitations of all sorts came in +for their share of her attention. She soon created for herself quite a +following of less daring spirits, among them Emily Carmichael and others +of the Jabberwock group who had graduated from the cocoon. It became +known that whenever young Mrs. Blair undertook a thing, it went with a +rush, not so much through her own efforts as through those of her +henchmen. She was recognized in club circles, despite her youth, as +something more valuable than a mere worker; she was an executive--All of +which fed her vanity and her sense of usefulness; and left somewhere +within her an aching void of dissatisfaction. + +Suffrage-work came nearer filling this void than had anything else, and +that, it must be confessed, for a rather ignoble reason. It gave her a +chance to make speeches. In the back of her mind, with the very real +conviction that the ballot is a necessity which women are unjustly +denied, lurked also the suspicion that the world is already aware of the +fact without any further need of agitation. Nevertheless she continued +to agitate, because she liked to exercise an ability which otherwise +might have remained forever undiscovered--There is no pleasure in life +equal to that of employing skillfully the talents that have been given +us. + +She made the discovery of her gift quite by accident. At some woman's +meeting, a lady who was to have spoken on the subject of the Federal +Amendment failed to appear, and Joan, who had recently read up on the +matter (it may be remembered that she was what the actors call "quick +study"), volunteered to take her place, meaning simply to give the gist +of the matter and thus relieve a harassed chairman. But when she found +herself on the platform facing interested and expectant faces, something +happened that had occasionally happened before when she "play-acted" for +the girls at school. Joan left herself, and became a part of the +audience. + +She listened to her voice going on and on, with amused approval. It was +a voice rather like her father's, carrying and flexible, and peculiarly +rich in its intonations. + +"It doesn't really matter much what I say," thought Joan, listening to +herself; "it's how I say it. If I drop my voice a note here, they ought +to frown." (They did.) "Now I'll have them smile a little, perhaps +chuckle. After I stop, no applause, I think--just a nice, thoughtful +silence." (All of which came faithfully to pass.) + +When she stepped down from that platform, her reputation as a public +speaker was made. Thereafter she delivered speeches whenever and +wherever she was asked, to the incredulous delight of Archie. + +"Say, come over and hear the wife do her little spiel to-night!" he +would urge upon all his acquaintance. "It's a treat!--stands right up +and hands it to 'em hot off the reel, without a note or anything. You +can see her little old brain workin' while she talks--and lookin' pretty +as a picture all the time!" + +His pride in her was such that he presented her with a successor to +Lizzie, a more pretentious member of the Lizzie family, in fact, in +which to get about to her numerous committee meetings. + +"Of course we can afford it," he said in answer to her demur. "Haven't +all your friends got automobiles? Well, then!" + +Joan accomplished much in the way of by-product to this satisfaction of +her vanity. Her youthful charm and her good breeding got her a hearing +frequently where more strenuous representatives of the cause had failed; +and through her many hitherto uncertain lambs were gathered safely into +the fold. On one occasion, to her astonishment, Joan discovered the +three Misses Darcy in her audience, wearing expressions of shrinking +alarm. But if they had come--not to scoff, they were too polite for +that: let us say to deprecate,--they remained to join. + +"I declare it's _shameful_ the way we women have been treated all this +time!" cried Miss Iphigenia afterwards, truculently signing the card +which made of her a suffragette. "I'd no idea! Not allowed a word in +edgewise, the gentlemen spending all the money and making all the laws, +ordering us about like we were so many white slaves--" + +"I don't recall that darling mama was ever treated in just that way by +dear papa?" interjected Miss Virginia, uncertainly. + +"Pooh! Exceptions," snorted Miss Iphigenia (if one so gentle could be +said to snort). "Exceptions can be made to prove anything, can't they, +Joan? Why, we haven't even had a say-so as to whether we should marry or +not. Simply had to sit back and say 'Thank you, sir!' to any gentleman +who was kind enough to ask us!" + +Here Miss Virginia was able thoroughly to concur. "And if nobody _was_ +kind enough to ask us--Oh, my dears, I begin to think that if we could +have had the ballot in time--!" + +"What's more," cried Miss Iphigenia, inspired, "I mean to bring our Susy +to hear you the next time you make a speech, Joan. Yes, I do! If they +try to keep her out, we shall say she is there as our maid. If we are +all to be allowed to vote about things, colored and white alike, it's +time for the colored women to be taught how!"--Which Joan justly +regarded as a signal victory. + +But at the same time she chuckled inwardly over the mental vision of an +audience of colored lady voters, swaying to and fro with occasional +unctuous shouts of, "Bress us, dat's so! Um, yas, my Lawd! Come down, +come down and gadder us sinners into de fold!" + +Occasionally, in the pursuance of her various public successes, Joan was +thrown into contact with people whom she classified under the heading of +Intelligentzia. There were plenty of these in Louisville, thinkers and +students and writers, a growing number of names which were rather better +known away from the city than in it. But of these Joan fought a little +shy. She cared more for books than for the making of them, had no wish +to peep behind the scenes for fear of losing her illusions. She got the +impression, too, that professional thinkers and writers were so busy +observing and interpreting the life about them as to have somehow lost +human touch with it. And Joan was nothing if not a humanist. She had a +youthful horror of being classified among the _bas bleux_. + +"Men do so hate a bluestocking," she said once pensively to her friend +Emily. + +"Men? Well, what of that? Yours doesn't!--and you don't want anybody +else's men, do you?" + +"None that I have seen so far," admitted Joan. "But you never can tell. +They say it's in the dangerous thirties that we really begin to sit up +and take notice--Anyway, I shall _never_ be married and settled enough +to relish the idea of men running away from me as if I were something +catching!" + +So she continued to avoid, rather than to cultivate, the company of the +Intelligentzia, thereby denying herself her birthright. + +And at twenty-five, a leading citizeness of her community, with +engagements so thick on her calendar that there was barely time for an +occasional meal at home, she woke every morning with the thought, "If +something doesn't happen to-day, I shall scream!" + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI + + +At that stage of life, something usually does happen.... + +Joan, coming home from a late committee-meeting one afternoon, realized +with a sort of pang, as she turned into the court where she lived, that +Indian summer had come and almost gone without her being aware of it. +The golden rain of leaves falling about her, the oddly wistful smell of +autumn smoke in the air, gave her a twinge of something like +homesickness; of sorrow because so many such evenings had come and gone +unnoticed. Words of Fiona McLeod came to her mind. + + "We are a perishing clan among the sons of God, because of the + slow waning of our joy, of our passionate delight, in the + Beauty of the World." + +"How _can_ one enjoy the Beauty of the World alone?" asked Joan suddenly +of herself.... + +Through the windows of some near-by house came a man's voice singing a +little Russian lullaby that she had not heard in many years. Her mother +had once made an English version of it: + + "Hush, my dear one, hush, my baby, + (Byushky, byu), + Smiles the moon upon thy cradle, + Smiles thy mother, too. + + "Cossack art thou in thy dreaming,-- + (Byushky, byu). + Blood and tears and fear and glory + Shall I know through you. + + "But to-night thou art my small one, + (Byushky, byu), + With the moon to bless thy slumber, + And thy mother, too." + +Joan walked slowly and listened. For all the simplicity of the air and +accompaniment, it was an artist who sang, and he sang in Russian. + +She was hungry for music. It was one of the things she had deliberately +done without of late, pronouncing it to herself for some odd reason "not +safe." She thought the voice came from the house of a neighbor who +occasionally entertained musicians--But she was mistaken. It came from +her own house. + +She opened her door, and stood there staring into the twilit room, her +slim grace outlined against the golden rain of falling leaves outside. +Stefan Nikolai gazed at her over the top of the piano with a quiet smile +of welcome, and finished his song. Joan burst into tears. + +Had Archie been there, he would have rushed to the rescue, comforting, +exclaiming, asking questions; and these methods failing, he would have +called anxiously upon Ellen and the bottle of valerian. + +But Archie was not there.... Nikolai went on playing softly, until the +tears had spent themselves. Then he said as if they had parted +yesterday: "I came to see why you no longer write to me, my dear. Is it +because you are too happy?" + +Joan began feverishly to light lamps and candles. "You must think me a +f-fool, Stefan!" She was dabbing at her eyes. "It's just--Mother used to +sing that song, you know." + +"I know. She learned it from me when you were very little--One is never +a fool to weep, Joan. It is only the fools who do not weep." + +"Now," she cried, turning in the lamplight. "Stand there and let me look +at you!" + +He stood where she bade him, a slim, erect, very distinguished figure in +foreign-cut clothes, with a rather Mephistophelian close clipped beard, +and singularly black eyes, eloquent in an otherwise impassive face. They +met her gaze now so tenderly, so caressingly, that something seemed to +melt in her heart which had long been pent there. She held out both +hands. + +"Ob, Stefan, Stefan! I am so glad!--And how handsome you are! I had +forgotten that." + +He laughed a little, and bent over her hands, kissing them lightly. + +"Why, you've never been so formal as that before!" + +"You have never been a grown-up married woman before." + +"I see! You mean that we've become the same age now?" She looked at him +more closely. "And we have! Why, Stefan, you're nothing like as old as I +used to think you!" + +"I never have been," he smiled. "I rather fancied you might discover +that fact some day. But--you wouldn't wait, my dear." He turned to some +packages on the top of the piano. "Have you become too grown-up and +married to like presents?" + +The brief moment of awkwardness passed before Joan was quite sure it had +been there. She clapped her hands. "Presents--for me? Oh, and for Ellen +Neal, and even for Archie, whom you don't know! Stefan, how dear of +you!" + +"Your people are my people," he said. "Also, I wish to propitiate them +into allowing me the freedom of your company, you see." + +"Then you're going to stay for some time?" she cried, delightedly. + +"As long as I am allowed to--'Home is the sailor, home from sea, and the +hunter home from the hill'--" + +"Till he begins to feel an itching in his wanderfoot again," said Joan, +making a little face at him. "I know you!" + +At that moment Ellen came in to light the lamps. "Oh, you've come, Miss +Joan, have you? I thought it was about time! Mr. Archie'll be home +before long," she said primly, and was about to withdraw when Joan cried +to her, "Nellen, have you seen Mr. Nikolai?" + +"Sure I have. How else did you s'pose he got into the house? I'm puttin' +a place on the supper-table for him," she replied, tossing her head. + +With years Ellen's temper did not become less difficult; but Joan was at +a loss to account for its present manifestation. + +"Of course you are," she murmured soothingly. "But I don't believe +you've seen the lovely present he's brought you all the way +from--Shanghai, is it, this time?" + +Ellen drew near, fascinated by the shimmering length of purple crêpe. +"Silk! For me? Shucks, what would I be doin' with stuff like that? It's +much too fine for the likes of me!" + +"Nothing is too fine for the likes of you," replied Nikolai, with quiet +sincerity. + +"Why, you'll be perfectly grand in it, Nellen, with the Battenberg +collar and cuffs!" + +She muttered, mollified, "I don't know as a single woman ought to accept +such things off a gentleman." + +"It's all right if her chaperon says she may," reassured Joan, keeping a +straight face. + +But when the old woman had gone, she said to her friend, "I'm ashamed of +her, Stefan! I can't think what gets into her cranky old head!" + +"It is always so at first. I have to win her confidence afresh each +time. I think the faithful soul regards me as a wolf menacing the safety +of her sheepfold." + +"That's because you are what she calls a 'for'ner.'" + +"It's because I am a Jew. Few really practising Christians can find it +in their hearts to trust a Jew." + +"But you're only half a Jew!" + +"You might as well say 'only half a negro,'" he remarked without +bitterness. "It is the blood that counts, not the amount of it...." + +He had brought her the gray sapphires he once promised her, a long +string of them with pearls between, and a tassel of pearls at either +end. + +She exclaimed with pleasure, "What an exquisite jewel!" (She had learned +more about such things than in the days when she secretly scorned her +aquamarine because it was not set in diamonds.) "How the pearls bring +out the color of the stones, and how wonderfully they match, Stefan!" + +"Do they?" He looked critically from the stones to her eyes. "Yes, they +are darker now than the aquamarine. Shadows have come into them--The +sapphires are better." + +She patted his hand. "It _is_ so nice to have somebody about again who +notices whether I have eyes or not!" + +"Surely your Archibald notices?" + +"If he does he never mentions them! He would think it rather indelicate, +like praising something of his own, you know." + +Nikolai smiled, gravely. "That is a very safe state for a husband to be +in--I hope you do not take advantage of it, Joan?" + +She gave him a quick glance. "I wonder what you mean by that?" + +But Nikolai did not explain. He said instead, "I am sorry you have no +children." + +She stiffened. Among her friends it had come to be understood that +children were best not mentioned to Joan. There was a hidden bruise +which time seemed to have left unhealed. + +Nikolai, however, chose not to heed the warning of her expression. + +"A home without children in it," he added, "seems to us wandering folk +only half a home." + +Joan stood up, a hand at her throat. "What do you think," she said in a +stifled voice, "it seems to us who are not wandering folk?..." + +In three questions Stefan Nikolai had discovered about the Blair +household all and more than he wanted to know. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII + + +At that moment there was the sound of a latch-key in the door and Archie +came in; a weary, cheerful Archie, not quite so dapper as of old, but +rather the better for that, perhaps. + +"Hello, darlingest!--'Late as usual.' There--I said it first! Things do +sort of pile up on a person. Why, look who's here? Wait! I know you--" +he extended an eager hand of welcome to the man who rose to greet him. +"I'll bet my hat it's Joan's pal, the author. Guessed you, didn't I? +Only you said he was an old chap, Joan!--Well, well, well! Welcome to +our city. I thought you were projickin' round, as the darkies say, in +Mesopotamia or Timbuctoo or some such spot. Gee, it's been good as a +geography lesson just to read the postmarks on your letters, sir! You've +come to stay with us, of course? Hotel--nonsense!" + +The two shook hands warmly. Despite the breeziness of her husband's +manner, Joan detected in it a respect which pleased her. This was no +mere family friend Archie was welcoming to his city; it was Mr. Nikolai, +the Author. She loved his little boyish bursts of hero-worship. + +"Look at my beautiful present," she said, slipping her hand through his +arm and exhibiting her necklace. "You've got a present, too. It's like +Christmas!" + +Archie was pleased as a child with his gift, a lacquer box surmounted by +an ivory monkey which, when a handle was turned, reached down into a box +and lifted out a cigarette. + +"Ain't they a wonderful little people, though, the Japanese?" he +demanded originally. "Who but them would have thought of such a trick?" + +"'They!' dear," murmured Joan. + +"'They,' then," he repeated, unabashed. "Can't be grammatical till I've +had my supper. I'm dead beat." + +It was not the first time of late that Archie had come home "dead beat," +though he did not often admit it. The treasurer of his company was ill, +and Archie, upon whom Mr. Moore was growing to depend for many things, +had volunteered to undertake the treasurer's work in addition to his +own. But he had not the same gift for finance as for salesmanship, and +took little joy in his new honors; except for the additional increase in +his salary. Joan, to whom money meant nothing so long as she could pay +her bills promptly, was rather troubled by the growing mercenariness of +her husband. He seemed to be always thinking in terms of dollars and +cents. + +But Archie lost his unwonted air of fatigue during dinner in his +interest in the tale of Mr. Nikolai's travels. Nikolai had the writer's +gift of accumulating odd experiences, so that even Ellen lingered unduly +about the table. Archie was enthralled. + +"Isn't it just as good as a geography book to hear him?" he demanded +several times. "To think of the natives of Yezo tattooing blue mustaches +on the girl-babies to make sure they'll catch a husband! Ho, ho, that +tickles me! There's a tip for Cousin Virginia, Joan." + +Here Ellen, who had been making her fourth unnecessary round with the +potatoes, suddenly spluttered and retired to her pantry. + +("The ice," remarked Nikolai to Joan, "is beginning to break.") + +"I've always thought," mused Archie, "that I'd like to see the world a +little myself some time. Armadillos on their native heath, Esquimaux +eating tallow candles, the Latin Quarter in Paris whooping it up--things +like that. But now," he finished with a happy glance at his wife, "I'm +glad enough to be allowed to stay just where I am." + +"Who wouldn't be?" murmured his guest. "With such a charming home--" + +"You ought to have been here when my garden was growing," said Archie, +highly gratified. "If I do say it myself, there's not a farmer +in the State raises better bib-lettuce than I do. As for our +asparagus--yum-yum! Simply melts in the mouth." + +The other looked at him very kindly. "Was that also one of your earlier +dreams--to be a farmer?" + +Archie nodded. "It's always seemed to me about the finest thing a man +could do, if he were able to--live on the land as he was intended to, +raise what he needs to eat and a little more for his friends; chickens +and pigs and a cow, and perhaps a little blooded stock if he could +manage it--" He broke off with a faint sigh. + +"Why, dear," cried his wife, surprised, "I never suspected you of these +bucolic ambitions!" + +"I reckon most men have 'em, if they'll own up to it--don't they, Mr. +Nikolai? Look how all boys love to dig in the dirt!... But you needn't +worry, darlingest. I'm never going to take _you_ off and bury you in the +country. I know better than that!" + +It was late when Nikolai rose to leave them, declining an urgent +invitation to occupy their guest-room. + +"No, I must get back to the hotel and relieve Sacha's mind. If I do not +he will certainly set out to find me, and as he has no language but +Russian, that might lead to complications." + +"Who," demanded Joan, "is Sacha, pray? Have you been stylish enough to +set up a valet?" + +"It is Sacha who appears to have set me up. I had occasion once to do +him a kindness, and he thereupon attached himself permanently to my +person. There is no creature on earth so grateful as a grateful +Russian." + +Joan took him by the arms and made him sit down again. "Not a foot do +you stir till you tell us all about it!" she proclaimed, scenting a +story. + +"About what? Sacha? Well!--In a village where I stopped for awhile a +young mouzhik had been very badly beaten and thrown into prison to await +trial, and things promised to go rather badly with him. So--" + +"Wait a minute. _Why_ had he been beaten?" + +"For murder," said Nikolai calmly. + +His audience gasped. + +"Only the murder was not successful," he continued, "Sacha was +unfortunately interrupted before he had completed the job." + +"Unfortunately!" + +"Yes. The headman of the village had taken Sacha's little sister against +her will, and the boy did what he could to avenge her. The law is not of +much use in such cases--to peasants, at least. The night before I left, +some of his friends liberated him from the village jail, and brought him +to me. Their trust in the power of learning is piteous. They demanded +that I take him away with me to America. That was a little difficult +without a passport, but I managed to smuggle him over the border." + +"How?" demanded Archie, round-eyed. + +"In my trunk," replied Nikolai, as if this were an everyday occurrence. +"I had arranged with a carter to drive me and my luggage early the next +day to the railroad. Instead, he drove me to the border, fortunately not +very far distant. My luggage was almost smothered by the time we got +there, however, despite the air-holes we had bored in the trunk. Poor +Sacha!" + +"But did nobody examine your luggage?" asked Joan. + +Nikolai shrugged. "As I told you, in Russia there is great respect for +learning--also for roubles. I am not without friends in high places. +Such officials as I encountered quite understood that a man of learning +like myself would naturally travel with a heavy trunkful of books, +ventilated by air-holes--But I have been warned that it will not be safe +for me to return to Russia. Thanks to this episode, in connection with +recent writings of mine, I am no longer _persona grata_ there." He +shrugged again. + +Archie's eyes were round. "Whew!" he commented. "That's what I call +life! Sounds like Michael What's-his-name, the Courier of the Czar!" + +"I assure you," murmured Nikolai, "that I am anything but a courier of +the Czar!..." + +Later, when they had gone upstairs, Joan came upon Archie examining her +string of sapphires, with an expression that puzzled her. It was grave, +and not very happy. + +"Dear," she said suddenly, "would you for any reason rather not have me +accept this present from Stefan? It is very handsome, I know. But he is +a rich man, my oldest friend, and he has been giving me things of this +sort ever since I was a baby." + +He turned on her a look of pure astonishment. "Not accept it! Why, +sweetheart, I'm tickled as I can be that such a beautiful thing should +be given to you. It looks like you, too, somehow, as if it had been +specially made for you. I was only wishing--" he sighed faintly--"that I +could give you things like this myself. And those Mandarin coats, and +laces and all he sends you, and--oh, life generally! You ought to see +the world, Joan, like he does. Maybe you can," he added hopefully, "as +soon as I get a little ahead." + +She hugged him. "Why, you old goose! you're always giving me beautiful +things. My pretty engagement-ring, and the house, and the new Lizzie, +and--You see Stefan doesn't have to provide me with dresses and three +meals a day, and put up with all my whims and megrims." + +"I'll bet he wishes he did!" exclaimed Archie, with one of his +occasional flashes of insight. + +She pulled his ears. "You think because you're in love with me yourself +that everybody else is, too! Stefan's about as much in love with me as +he was with--baby Joan. It's simply gratitude. Mother was very sweet to +him always--I've heard her say that it had been her job, and not an easy +one, to restore his faith in women. It seems that he was engaged once to +marry a girl who quite understood about his Jewish blood. But when he +took her down to the East Side in New York to see the old aunt who had +brought him to America, she couldn't stand it. She broke with him, not +because of any difference in religion, but because the aunt spoke +Yiddish and wore a horsehair wig!--Mustn't she feel like a fool, now +that he's become so famous?" + +"Well, I don't know," said Archie doubtfully. "I'd kind of hate to have +Yiddish and a wig in the family myself." + +She looked at him in surprise. "Archie! I didn't know you were such a +snob! So long as Stefan doesn't wear a wig or speak Yiddish, what does +the aunt matter! And the funny part of it was that the aunt rather +looked down upon poor Stefan because his father had married a Gentile! +So he came to regard mother and me as his only family.... Now run along +to bed." She kissed him on his eyes, a caress that Archie loved. "I'm +going to take a dose of valerian and have a good night's sleep. It _is_ +exciting having your best friend drop down on you from who knows where!" + + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII + + +It proved exciting not only to Joan. Some years earlier the arrival of +so distinguished a visitor unadvertised and unpressagented would have +caused little more than a ripple, except perhaps among what Joan called +the Intelligentzia. But now that _belles lettres_ were coming quite into +fashion, the chance of knowing personally a friend of Tolstoi and +Maeterlinck, whose articles appeared in all the more intellectual +magazines, whose recent book of plays had been published simultaneously +in five languages and censored off the American stage into every +up-to-date home in the land, was one that could not be ignored. + +The Russian servant, too, was a picturesque addition; a great, bearded +fellow with eyes like a child, a tall sheepskin _papacha_ on his head, +and his trousers tucked into wrinkled boots. This exotic apparition +frequently opened the Blair door to visitors, and even waited on them at +table, Sacha having without the aid of language won his way somehow to +the rather uncertain heart of Ellen Neal; possibly because of his +infantile appetite for sweets. He followed his master about like a dog, +and whenever Nikolai was in the front of the house, Sacha's broken +English and sudden high laugh were frequently to be heard from the rear. +There were a good many callers at the Blair house in those days. + +The Blairs, and incidentally their friend, also found themselves deluged +with invitations, many of which Joan accepted. She rather enjoyed +showing off her lion, whose simple dignity was quite impervious to +lionizing. His social successes amused her by their unexpectedness; for +Nikolai had no small talk and pretended to none. He paid his chance +companions the compliment of believing them to be interested in whatever +interested him; and very often they were. + +Once, Joan, overhearing him enlarging to an audience composed of Archie, +Emily Carmichael, and a particularly frivolous young divorcée of their +acquaintance, on the Ostwald formula for happiness, felt called upon to +come to the rescue; and received for once in her life a decided snubbing +from her husband. + +"Don't interrupt, Joan, please!--Mr. Nikolai's telling us something +mighty interesting. Go on, sir--G=E^2+W^2--I didn't quite get you about +the Hüttengluck and the Heldengluck?" + +"G," explained Nikolai, "is as you know Gluck (happiness). E stands for +Energetics; meaning activity, health, ambition, etc. W stands for +Widerwillig, one of those comprehensive words one finds only in the +German, meaning everything that runs counter to happiness, all the +by-products of activity--opposition, fatigue, trouble, etc. There are +philosophers who hold that by reducing E (the activities of life) one +also reduces W (the unpleasantnesses), thereby attaining happiness. +Renunciation, you understand;--the simple life, such as that of +Diogenes, who threw away his one utensil, the cup, when he saw a man +drinking satisfactorily out of his hand. + +"But the danger is that in generally reducing the formula, G also is +reduced, and may even become minus. At its best the happiness attained +in this way is what Ostwald calls Hüttengluck (hut-happiness). He +advocates instead the Heldengluck (hero-happiness). Square, he says, +both your Energetics and your Widerwillig, and the result will be a +doubled happiness, robust, vital. In other words, live to the top of +your powers, suffer to the top of your powers; and you will be able to +enjoy to the top of your powers." + +"Sure!" said Archie. "I see that. Me for Ostwald!" + +The little divorcée remarked in an aside to Joan, "He certainly does +make you think, this high-brow beau of yours! But I _like_ to think, +sometimes." + +It taught Joan a lesson. She recalled a sentence of Trevelyan's: "A man +who has too much sense to overrate his own qualities will often make +amends to his self-esteem by underrating his neighbor's." + +She realized that she might have been making such a mistake herself. If, +as she had complained, there was no real talk to be had in society, were +not she and people like her responsible? + +If a scholar such as Stefan Nikolai found it worth while to give of his +best to simpler comprehensions, was it not pretentious and even +ridiculous of a Joan Blair to "talk down" to them, tactfully adapting +herself to their limitations while concealing yawns behind her hand? She +had the grace to blush for herself.... + +The companionship of Joan and Nikolai was, as Louisville interestedly +suspected, not an entirely intellectual one, however. Like all people +who work hard with their heads (and Nikolai spent many hours at his desk +daily, even in holiday seasons), he knew the full value of play, and had +always been to Joan the most delightful of play-fellows. In her +childhood he had often borrowed her for what they called +"expeditions"--visits to circuses, zoölogical gardens, museums; +boat-journeys, picnics--always to the surprise of Major Darcy, who +regarded a child as a desirable addition to any family, something to be +petted, and instructed, and even romped with in moderation, but by no +means to be made a companion of. + +These expeditions renewed themselves now in modified form. The two were +constantly to be met with in the most unexpected places--tramping about +the parks in the rain, making tea over a gipsy fire by the roadside, +climbing, their pockets bulging with books and apples, to the top of a +certain hill whence miles of wild rolling country were to be seen, and +the city behind them was as if it had never been. Joan had no longer to +enjoy the Beauty of the World alone. The hill became their favorite +haunt; and all through the open winter they climbed to its top almost +daily, where in the shelter of the cliff they built themselves a little +fire and sat, their backs to the world, reading and munching apples, and +talking, talking endlessly. + +Joan never felt that any subject bad been exhausted between them. It +seemed to her that the thoughts of a lifetime had been accumulating in +her mind, waiting for him to pass judgment upon them; and to him it was +no less than a miracle to watch her brain expanding, enlarging, visibly +blossoming under the nourishment he supplied. + +Perhaps her brain was not the only thing Nikolai loved to watch about +Joan. He usually managed to seat himself a little behind her, out of her +range of vision, so that his own might rest where it chose, unobserved. +But he asked no more; having learned of life to practise the Hüttengluck +which he did not preach. + +Sometimes Archie made a third on these expeditions; for he had developed +a great enthusiasm for Joan's famous friend, and occasionally neglected +business to sit at the feet of wisdom. Not often, however. Business had +reached a point where it declined to be neglected (the depression of +1913 was at hand); and besides Archie, despite their affectionate +welcome, felt rather _de trop_ with the pair. + +"I'm no high-brow, and there's no use pretending I am," he confessed +once to Emily Carmichael. "But that don't keep me from appreciating +high-brows when I see 'em. It's as good as a correspondence-course in +literature to hear those two go on. I'm as much out of it, though, as if +they were talkin' the French language--which they sometimes are, at +that!" + +"Archie," asked Emily, hesitating, "are you never the least little +bit--jealous?" Her friendship for Joan was too unquestionable for the +remark to sound feline. + +He laughed. "Me jealous? What for? I've got her, haven't I? And he +hasn't, poor chap! Glad to share what I can." + +It happened that at the same time this conversation occurred--it was a +chance meeting down town, and Archie, always the soul of hospitality, +had invited Emily to join him in a cup of hot clam-broth at a +soda-fountain--that the pair on the hilltop were not indulging in either +literature or the French language. Joan, ensconced upon a bed of leaves +with her back against the sheltering cliff and her face warm with +fireglow, remarked dreamily: + +"Stefan, how have I ever managed to live here so long without you?" + +His smile did not reach his eyes; those beautiful, speaking, somber eyes +which reflected in them so much of the history of his race. He said, +"And how shall you manage when I am gone again?" + +She turned quickly to look at him. Something in his voice troubled her. +"Gone--Why, Stefan, you're not thinking of going soon?" + +"My book has made great progress here. It is a pleasant place for +writing--I have nearly finished." + +She gave an exclamation of something like anger. "You said you were +going to stay 'as long as possible.' And after all it was only to finish +another book!" + +"Not quite 'only,' Joan." + +"Then," she demanded impatiently, "why do you talk about going? I am +still here, whether the book is done or not! Are you tired of me +already?" + +"What do you think?" + +"Have you become such a gipsy that you can't stop anywhere more than a +few months?" + +"I wish," he said soberly, "that I might put my roots into this hillside +like a tree, and never, never stir again, except to the winds, and the +sap in my branches, and the seasons as they come and go--" + +"And me beside thee singing in the wilderness?" she smiled, as he did +not continue. "Say you'd need me here somewhere, even if you were a +tree!" + +"Every tree has one bird who lives in its branches. I should keep a nest +safe for you, my dear--you and your Archie." He broke off. "But I am not +a tree, merely a Wandering Jew to whom the time must come again to +wander." + +"But why, why? It is not as if you belonged anywhere else!" + + "Nowhere else in the world, nor yet in Picardy," + +he said. "I have always meant, when I grew old, to come to wherever you +may be, and settle down, and grow up again with your children. But it +seems the time is not yet. I am--not old." + +"You? of course not! You're not even fifty, are you?" + +"No," he sighed, "not even fifty. Oh, to be eighty or thereabouts, with +the dross burnt out and only the spirit left, free--!" + +"I'd hate you to be all spirit, Stefan! Such an uncomfortable, unnatural +person to play with: like one of those cherubim, with only wings and no +_de quoi_ at all.--(You remember the miracle that happened once, when +the Sistine Madonna said to the little angels in the picture with her, +'_Assaiez-vous, mes enfants._' And they answered, '_Mais, Madame, nous +n'avons pas de quoi!_'--) I never could understand people wanting to be +old." She made a restless movement. "Perhaps you've had enough out of +life to satisfy you, but me--Why, I feel as if I had not yet begun to +live!" + +"Nor have you," he said quietly. + +"_Why_, Stefan!" she demanded, facing him. "Why don't I begin, then? +Surely enough has happened to me, more than to most people. I fling +myself into whatever comes along with all my heart. And yet--I don't +seem to be there at all! It is as if the real me were looking on at +somebody else who struggles and amuses herself and suffers. I'm tired of +looking on, tired!" + +"Who isn't?" he said musingly. "We want to be in the thick of the fray, +people like you and me, even if it kills us. But--we can't choose. A +good deal is chosen for us before we're born--the color of our hair, the +shapes of our noses" (he smiled and sighed), "doubtless the kinks in our +brains--Come, the fire is out, and if I allow you to take cold, Ellen +Neal will surely banish me from Eden with her flaming sword." + +As they walked briskly home in the early February twilight, she said +after a long silence, "See here, Stefan, if you really are going when +your book is finished, let's not waste any more time going about to +silly parties and all that. You only do it to please me, and I only do +it to show you off. Why should we pretend any longer?--Let's be together +as much as we possibly can without bothering about anybody else! Shall +we?" + +He looked rather startled. + +"I mean," she continued calmly, "to make no more engagements at all; and +you needn't either--unless you wish to?" + +"I shall not wish to." + +"I thought not! There's really nobody here you care about talking to +except me, is there? And there's nobody in the world I'd willingly waste +a word on if you were about. So there, that's settled!" she said with a +little breath of satisfaction. "It's a good thing you're old enough to +be my father, Stefan, or I suppose people would begin to talk about us. +Still," she added, "I'm glad you're not eighty!" + +Meeting her candid, clear, affectionate gaze, Nikolai managed to summon +up a smile of his own that was quite grandfatherly. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX + + +Joan was not the judge of human nature she fancied herself if she +believed that a disparity in age would render gossip innocuous. The +disparity was not as apparent as she believed. Nikolai was, in his dark, +impassive way, a singularly handsome man, and the stories of his early +ghetto life and later experiences made of him a romantic figure to more +eyes than Joan's. In vain the Jabberwocks rallied around her to a girl. +In vain Effie May, whose shrewd ears heard usually whatever was to be +heard, even in her retirement, casually spread abroad the story of Mr. +Nikolai's devotion to the first Mrs. Darcy. + +Joan's attitude was discouraging to her most loyal friends. She seemed +quite unaware that she was being defended and rallied around. It rather +relieved her when invitations began to dwindle in number; she was thus +saved the trouble of declining them. She entered into their growing +solitude _a deux_ with the same single-mindedness she had brought to +bear upon her frivolous period, her domestic period, and her brief +career of publicity; being one of those natures which can do only one +thing at a time, and that very hard. + +When she thought about their relationship at all, it rather pleased her +to fancy that she was playing Mrs. Thrale to Nikolai's Dr. Johnson. +Unfortunately the people about her were for the most part unaware of +this classic relationship; and had they known of it would have doubtless +regarded it with one eye knowingly closed. + +Much of the town's attention fastened itself upon Archibald. Scandals +there had been before this, even in its upper circles; but they had +maintained hitherto a decent surreptitiousness, had veiled themselves +beneath a more or less transparent cover of secrecy, until some climax +occurred in the way of pistol-shot or divorce-proceeding. The _tertium +quid_, acknowledged and accepted, was new to the experience of +Louisville; and very interesting. + +Meanwhile Stefan Nikolai, all unconscious of the stimulus he was +offering to general conversation, spent all of his free hours with Joan, +having long since faced and discounted the risk of it so far as he was +concerned. The risk Joan herself might run appeared to his experience +negligible. He had never even in his youth attracted women as less +intellectual men attract them. + +Doubtless even had he been aware of the town's talk it would not have +troubled him. For all his knowledge of humanity, he was no man of the +world, in the accepted sense of the term. He lived too much beyond it to +attach great importance to its opinion. In only one person he recognized +any right of criticism. That was Joan's husband, with whom long since he +had come to an understanding. + +It is a pity that neither Joan nor Joan's world ever came to know of +this understanding, which would have added to the affair a distinct +flavor. + +Mr. Nikolai had taken a small apartment, where Joan and her husband and +occasionally others dined with him, or dropped in for a glass of tea in +the Russian fashion and an hour of two of music afterwards. Nikolai, +true to the instinct of his race, never made even a temporary home +without music in it. He had, in addition to a piano, various instruments +collected in different lands, among them a balalaika upon which the +servant Sacha could sometimes be induced to play a shy accompaniment to +peasant ballads. + +But Archie had never come there without Joan; and so one day when he +dropped in alone, ostensibly to "hear the Rooshian pick his banjo," +Nikolai felt a surprise that he was careful not to show. His trained +eyes detected signs of distress in Archie which others, including his +wife, had failed to notice. The beaming smile did not conceal from +Nikolai a little anxious pucker between the brows, a nervous twitching +of the big freckled hands. + +The writer was not unused to being taken into the confidence of troubled +people. It was one of the things that compensated for the enforced +solitude of his life, such an occasional glimpse into the secret hearts +of his fellow-men. It is an odd fact that writers and philosophers and +even poets, all people who live necessarily a little apart from their +kind, are frequently chosen as confessors by those who feel the need of +confession. + +So Nikolai asked no questions, sure that a friendly silence and a good +cigar would produce results. Nor did he ring for Sacha and the "banjo." +At length Archie blurted out without preliminaries: + +"Joan isn't happy, Mr. Nikolai. I guess you've noticed that! She hasn't +been for a long while. I'm not sure she ever was.--I s'pose I was a fool +to think a man like me could make her happy." + +"It is a large order for any one human being to make another human being +happy, Blair." + +"But you could have!" + +Neither spoke for a few minutes. Nikolai made no pretense of not +understanding. Only a slight flush came momentarily into his face, and +left it paler by contrast. "I am not sure," he said at last. "But I +should have liked to try." + +"Of course! I knew that when you cabled us to wait till you came--But +Joan don't know it yet. Funny, isn't it, when she's so smart? She thinks +you feel toward her like a cross between a teacher and a fond +father.--'Father'--my eye! She don't catch you lookin' at her sometimes +the way I do!" + +"Do I--look at her?" + +Archie nodded expressively. "I suppose I understand, because I'm in love +myself. And she don't"--he swallowed hard--"because she isn't." + +"Not yet, perhaps," said the other slowly. "Give her time, my boy." + +"Time? I've given her time." Archie heaved a great sigh. "Now I mean to +give her something else. I mean to give her a chance. She never really +had a chance before, Mr. Nikolai. I--I kind of got her off her guard, +when she was takin' the count. It wasn't sporting of me." + +The other, moved, laid a hand on his knee. In moments of emotion the +foreign blood showed in such slight demonstrativeness. But Anglo-Saxon +Archie stiffened, and the hand was at once removed. + +"She's too fine for me, you see," he went on. "Too sort of delicate.--I +read somewhere that china vases and brass vases couldn't float down a +stream together without the china ones getting smashed (though why vases +would be floating down a stream anyway, _I_ don't know!). But I'm brass, +you see, and she's china. I thought it might be all right after the +twinnies came. I still think it might have been, if they--" Again he +swallowed hard. + +Nikolai nodded. + + "Their hearts are wild + As be the hearts of birds, till childer come." + +But, my dear boy, you speak as if the twinnies had exhausted the +available supply!" + +Archie's eyes dropped. Then he lifted them again in a frank gaze. "I +almost lost her, sir. Do you think I'd put her through a thing like that +again? God!--her little frantic hands clutching at us! And her voice, +hoarse as a fierce animal's--!" He jumped up and crossed to a window, +where he stood with his back to Nikolai, his face working. + +After a moment the other followed, and this time Archie did not stiffen +under his touch. + +"So," said the Jew, "in your love you would deny her the woman's +privilege of suffering?" + +"Yes! Suffering on account of me--yes! Every time. It ain't fair, women +having to stand the whole business. If I could help, if I could bear one +single pain of it--But I can't." + +"No," said Nikolai, his lips twitching despite the sadness about them. +"No, I am afraid you can't. But--" + +"And it's not," interrupted Archie, reverting doggedly to his theme, "as +if I were the right man, you see!" + +They were silent again. + +"You are so afraid of losing her that you will not give her children," +mused Nikolai presently. "And yet if I understand you you are willing to +lose her--otherwise?" + +"To the right man," said Archie directly. "To you--Because I think you +are the right man. She's been more contented since you've been here than +I ever knew her to be. Of course you're twice her age, but that don't +count with brainy people. And you could give her everything I can't--not +just _things_; you know what I mean! Travel, education, all that. She's +in your class, sir, not mine.--Will you do it?" + +Nikolai looked rather bewildered. "Do what, Blair?" + +"Oh, I don't know. Be nice to her all you can, read poetry to her, get +her to care for you. Make love to her, if you want!--You can bet I +wouldn't say that to many men--" he laughed forlornly--"but you're +different, somehow. I can trust you." + +"Thank you." Nikolai's face lit with a very charming smile. "Yes, I +think you can trust me--And in case your scheme were successful, if I +should prove to be 'the right man'--what about you?" + +"Oh, me? Why, I'd just naturally fade out of the landscape." + +"How do you mean?" + +"There're lots of ways. A cramp in swimming, or an accident when you're +cleaning a gun, or a dose of the wrong medicine--" + +Nikolai's brows met sharply. "You mean suicide?" + +"Sure! Why not? It's done every day, and done so the insurance companies +can't prove a thing, too." + +Nikolai rose and stood beside him. "You, who say that you love her," he +said sternly, "you who cannot bear that she should suffer even to obtain +happiness--you would condemn her to a lifetime of grief and remorse? You +might perhaps deceive others. Do you think you could deceive Joan? Happy +or not, you know that she cares for you, Blair!" + +The other's face softened. "Why, yes, I reckon she does, in a way. Once +when I had a bad cold and she was scared for fear it was going to run +into pneumonia she was awfully upset. I guess you're right," he mused. +"It wouldn't do for me to do that. Why, her father's death almost killed +her, and he was a mighty worthless old scamp, and she knew it, too! +Joan's a deeper feeler than you'd think--Say, I might do something to +make her get a divorce?" he suggested, brightening. + +"What, for instance?" + +"Oh, other women,"--he made a face of distaste. "I'd hate it--a low +woman certainly does get my goat! Still--" + +Nikolai smiled. "Do you think you could deceive Joan about that, either? +You might succeed in hurting her, perhaps; but she would not admit it. +Joan is proud." + +"Lord, don't I know it? Proud as Lucifer! No, I've got to think of +something to do that wouldn't be any reflection on her," he mused, "and +yet that she wouldn't stand for. Actionable, as the lawyers say--" + +Nikolai burst out laughing, and taking Archie by the shoulders shook him +to and fro. + +"My dear boy, I fear I cannot enter into this nefarious little plot of +yours. I am not going to make love to your wife--I should not know how! +Nor yet am I going to lure her from you with poetry and fine words. +But--" he added, sobering, "I think with you that she has not yet found +herself. There, perhaps, I can help. I can at least offer her my own +recipe for happiness." + +"You mean that formula thing?" said Archie doubtfully. + +"No formula, Blair. Simply--work." + +The other's face fell. "Joan never has been one of those idle society +girls you read about," he said, defensively. "Sewing, and housekeeping, +and civics, and suffrage, and going around giving advice to the +poor--She's tried 'em all, Mr. Nikolai." + +"And found them all other people's work, not hers.--But, Blair, I must +warn you," he added gravely, "that when she does find her _metier_ you +are in far more danger of losing her to it than to--me, for instance." + +"No danger of losing what you haven't got," sighed Archie. + + + + +CHAPTER L + + +People who know life only on its surfaces were apt to pronounce Joan +Blair a rather hard young person. She would herself have admitted to a +certain hardness, secretly aware, however, that it was a trait she had +deliberately cultivated for protective purposes. Hers was one of the +unfortunate natures that are more attuned to the minor than the major +chords of life. + +Once in her childhood she had confessed to her mother, with a burst of +sobbing, that she never expected to be entirely happy because of all the +stray dogs running about the world, hungry and lonesome. As she grew +older she discovered that it is not only the stray dogs who go hungry +and lonesome. + +She often wondered impatiently why it was that every one with whom she +came into close contact seemed soon or late to develop a marked quality +of pathos: her futile father, the struggling Misses Darcy, gruff old +devoted Ellen, Effie May, Archie--and now more than all Stefan Nikolai. +Despite his renown, his wide experience, his phenomenal rise in life +from so handicapped a beginning, her friend seemed nevertheless to her a +rather tragic figure, belonging to nobody, product of two countries and +native of neither, without even a race to which he could claim complete +allegiance. For his mother had been a Christian girl of high birth, +outcast by her family because of her marriage with a Jew; who had been +in turn rejected by his own people because of her. + +Both had been killed in a _pogrom_, one of those appalling man-hunts +that still take place in the Russian pale in the name of Christianity; +and his father's sister, escaping to a land where there are no +_pogroms_, had brought the child Stefan with her. It must have been a +forlorn boyhood for a sensitive, gifted, half-alien lad, none too +welcome in a poor and growing Jewish family of the slums; working his +brilliant way through school and university, only to meet a crushing +rebuff in this land of the free and equal at the hands of a girl who was +afraid to marry him. + +Joan understood why her mother had taken the hurt and lonely youth into +her rare friendship. Aside from Nikolai's charm of companionship and her +gratitude to him, she felt it an inherited duty to "make it up" to him +for the sadness of his past. And where Joan gave, she gave +unstintingly.... + +She did not pursue her headstrong course without receiving faint +inklings now and then as to its effect upon the community. The warnings +began with Ellen. + +"I ain't sayin' he's not a quiet, pleasant-spoken enough gentleman, as +free with his money as if he was a Christian--Most _too_ free, if you +ast me! What's he want out of it all? After all, a Jew's a Jew." + +"Even if he happens to be a Unitarian?" (Nikolai, during his college +life, had chanced to adopt that creed.) + +"More 'n ever then," muttered Ellen darkly, "because his Jewness is all +bottled up in him, ready to burst out on you unexpected, like a +Jack-in-the-Box--You needn't laugh, Joie--you kin see it all in that eye +of his. The rest of him don't look so Jewy, but if ever I see a Sheenier +eye--! I don't hold with an eye that shows all it feels that way, +myself. Seems sort of shameless." + +"Indecent exposure of the eye," murmured Joan, "does not confine itself +to the Semitic race, Nellen. It seems common to all people who do a good +deal of thinking. One can't seem to mask the eye. The more that goes on +behind it, the more it reflects--As witness my own," she added +complacently. + +Her next warning came from a higher quarter. Happening to encounter Mrs. +Carmichael in the shops one day, that lady invited her to drive home in +her carriage, where she proceeded to catechise her with tongue and +lorgnon. + +"You are looking very charming, dear child--one wonders at not seeing +you about more? I hear your interesting friend is still in town, +however. Perhaps it is he who absorbs so much of your time." + +Joan admitted the imputation. + +"Oh, really? Your husband is very complaisant!--Still, Mr. Blair would +naturally be democratic in his point of view." + +"Democratic? I think I don't understand." + +The older lady shrugged; an Anglo-Saxon shrug, portentous in effect. +"Oh, these writing-people--it's so difficult to tell who they are, isn't +it? But Emily tells me you've always been singularly courageous." + +"It does not take a great deal of courage," said Joan, flushing, "to +continue my mother's friendship with the most brilliant man I know. +There even seem to be people who envy me the opportunity." + +(This shot told, Mrs. Carmichael having been one of the first and most +eager to entertain the visiting celebrity.) + +"Doubtless he is brilliant as a writer," she conceded. "That is his +profession. But even as a writer (I know nothing of him, of course, +otherwise!) do you consider him quite safe, my dear? Those plays, for +instance." + +"Have you read them?" asked Joan bluntly. + +"Why, not yet. I bought them, of course--one does. But one has so little +time for reading. I am told, however, that in one of them a child is +born practically on the stage. At least the characters converse about it +quite openly." + +"Shocking of them," murmured Joan. "Those things should be managed by +means of asterisks. But it's so hard to find actors who play asterisks +acceptably." + +Mrs. Carmichael's lorgnon busied itself. "I should be sorry," remarked +its owner, "to think that any friend of my daughter's would care to +encourage indelicacy, whether in literature or--or in life." + +"Dear me, yes!--life is indelicate enough anyway, without our +encouragement, isn't it?" murmured Joan. + +She felt, perhaps justly, that she had come out of this encounter with +the honors of war. But Joan could ill afford to make enemies.... + +The finish of Nikolai's book postponed itself from week to week. Spring +came, and early summer, that most witching of seasons in the middle +South, languid with the scent of magnolia-blossoms, gay with the bright +parasols and fragile muslins that flutter forth like butterflies at the +first touch of sun. With Nikolai to share it, the gray old town regained +something of its former glamour for Joan. She had many favorite spots to +show him--a quiet tree-arched street of patriarchal mansions in the +midst of warehouses, with all the charm and old-world dignity of a +London square; a certain secluded nook low on the bank of the slow, +yellow river, undiscovered save by an occasional working-girl and her +shirt-sleeved "gentleman-friend," with whom Nikolai conversed as +pleasantly as with old acquaintances. He had not the Major's elegant +distaste for the _canaille_. + +Through his trained eyes, Joan began to note again certain picturesque +touches which had charmed her when first she came to Louisville; a +primitive, two-wheeled cart bobbing along a crowded street, drawn by +mules hitched tandem-fashion, on one of which a dusky muleteer perched +sidewise, singing. "That might be Spain," said Nikolai. Or perhaps two +mulatto women, dressed in the extreme of fashion even to rouge and +face-veils, greeting each other with lifted, outflung hand--a gesture as +savage and typically African as if they were only a few weeks out of the +jungle, instead of a few generations--Joan found that with Nikolai it +was possible to do a good deal of traveling right at home. + +Meanwhile the scandal of their association grew and spread; and at last +Emily, distressed at the magnitude of the storm of which her friend was +the center, decided to interfere. Not with words, however. Long social +experience had given her tact, if not wisdom. + +Thereafter it began to be noticed that Mrs. Blair and her distinguished +friend were not to be seen so often alone together. There was usually a +third on their expeditions, and frequently a fourth, whenever Archie +could be pressed into service. + +"Now that I've got some one to talk to myself, I don't feel so in the +way," he confessed naïvely. + +Emily formed a habit of dropping in at the Blairs' in the early +afternoon (just at the finish of writing hours), so that she had +naturally to be included in any plans that were afoot. + +"I don't know what's come over you, dear," remarked Joan once, half +laughing. "You're positively rushing me nowadays!--or is it Nikolai? I +begin to suspect you of designs upon Stefan." + +"And why not? He's perfectly eligible. We old maids have to keep a +weather eye out, you know--But how do you know it isn't Archie I'm +pursuing?" asked Emily calmly. "I appreciated him long before you did, +you know." + +"Emmy, Emmy, such indelicacy!" sighed Joan. "And him a married party, +too! What would your mother say?" + +"I'm feeding her Shaw lately in broken doses. She's prepared for almost +anything--You don't really mind my trailing you about this way, do you, +Joan?" she asked, sobering. "I love hearing you two talk. Am I in the +way, if I just keep quiet as a mouse?" + +"Mind? Of course not!" Joan kissed her. "You and Stefan are my two +dearest friends, and I _love_ to have you friends with each other. +Besides, he says you have an 'interesting mind,' my dear. Welcome to our +city!" + +So Emily continued to make a courageous third in their walks and talks +and studies; accepted by Nikolai with his usual courteous friendliness, +and by the gossips with feelings which were not unmixed. + +"It's the husband's doings--he's awake at last!" declared one faction. + +"Men are so fickle. He's had a good deal of her--and Emily Carmichael is +looking particularly well this year. Poor Joan!" murmured the other +faction, composed of her more intimate acquaintances. + +Joan's feelings on the matter were also not unmixed. She loved Emily; +her presence was always a pleasure; she had assuredly nothing to discuss +with Nikolai that could not be discussed before so devoted an audience. +And yet-- + +Stefan came to take the other girl's company so much for granted that +one evening, when Joan suggested a row up the river for their next day's +outing, it was natural enough for him to say, "That sounds charming! and +I think Miss Carmichael will enjoy it, too." + +This innocent remark produced surprising results; as surprising to Joan +as to himself. She jumped to her feet. "Look here, Stefan! If you want +Emily so much, why don't you take her by yourself?" she cried, and +bursting into tears she fled from the room. + +Nikolai stared blankly at Archie. + +"Will you tell me _what_ I have said?" + +For once the other was the first to understand. + +"Don't you see?" he replied with his patient smile (and there is nothing +sadder to see in life than patience on the face of a young man). "It's +come about just as I thought it would, Mr. Nikolai. She's--she's jealous +of you. That's all." + + * * * * * + +That night Stefan Nikolai, usually very regular in habit, sat so late by +his open window that the servant Sacha emerged at intervals to +investigate. + +"Is Excellency ill, that he neither sleeps nor reads?" + +"Not ill, Sacha. Go to bed." + +There was a lilac-tree blooming below the window, and the scent of the +young summer came in to him, flooding his heart, his senses-- + +The servant appeared again. + +"Has Excellency sadness?" + +"Not sadness, Sacha. I think--it is happiness." + +"And yet he sighs?" + +Nikolai stirred, and got to his feet. + +"That is because our wandering begins again. The book is done. In a few +days we go." + +The servant took an eager step toward him. "Not alone?" + +Nikolai started. He had forgotten, as so many forget, the watching eyes +of those who serve us. "Certainly, alone!" he said sharply. "Am I not +always alone?" + +Sacha's eyes dropped. "In my country," he suggested gently, "when we see +a woman which we need, we take her." + +The other smiled. The two had been through much together. "And if she +chances to belong to some one else?" + +"Then"--with an eloquent thrust of the hand--"we kill!" But seeing that +the hint was unlikely to bear fruit, he added dispiritedly, "Excellency +is not, however, a peasant. Sometimes to be a peasant is good." + + + + +CHAPTER LI + + +The storm which burst in August, 1914, had the effect of blotting out +smaller storms into nothingness. It brought in its wake different things +to different natures: to some apprehension, sheer personal terror, to +others the quickening sense of high adventure, to others yet sick +disillusionment with a world that was still capable of such gigantic +folly. + +To Joan, in the dead blankness that followed the departure of her +friend, the great war seemed strangely like a godsend. It was as if she +had cried in desperation to Providence. "What next?" and Providence had +answered, "This!" + +Perhaps she was not the only woman to whom the sudden extraneous demand +for all that was in her came as a godsend. + +She flung herself head, hand, and heart, into the organization of relief +work. As the Germans pursued their incredible way through Belgium, it +seemed to her that every frantic mother, every maimed child, every +desperate father, the very roofless houses and ruined orchards, cried +aloud upon her, Joan Blair, for help. She could not understand why +others did not seem to hear the cry, how those about her could pursue +the usual course of life unheeding--Joan was one of the first Americans +to declare war upon Germany. + +But those about her heard better than she realized. Gradually as the +change came, it came. Hers was not the only blood in the old border +State to thrill to the call of drums. And as in the earlier days, while +the men got down their firearms to clean them, the women rolled up their +sleeves and settled down to work. + +Under the impetus of Joan and others like her, Bridge quickly gave way +to bandage-making, the click of unaccustomed needles drowned the chatter +of clubrooms and tea-table, and the Jabberwocks in a body abandoned the +pursuit of culture for a course in hospital assistance. "So that we +shall be ready by the time our own boys need us," explained Joan. + +"But, Mrs. Blair, you ought to curb those firebrand sentiments of +yours!" protested Judge Carmichael to her after one of her public +utterances. "It is enjoined upon us Americans to be strictly neutral." + +"Neutral?" cried the daughter of Richard Darcy. "Neutral? Have you ever +seen a pit-terrier jump on a respectable little poodle-dog out in the +front yard protecting his household--and were you able to remain +_neutral_? I know my country better than that!" + +In keeping up with Joan's new activities, the town quite forgot to look +at her askance. + +Nikolai, too, was making of the war a personal matter. He wrote that he, +with other writers in New York, was financing a hospital unit with which +he intended to go to France in any capacity where he would be useful. He +had been in his youth, among other things, a student of medicine. + +"Isn't it fine, Archie?" she cried, thrilling to this letter. "Oh, if we +could only do something ourselves! I'd like to send him a contribution +for his unit, anyway. May I?" + +Archie hesitated. "How much, dear?" + +Joan flushed. It was the first time he had failed to give her without +question whatever she asked of him. + +"Sorry to have to ask," she said, rather stiffly. "But I've given the +last cent I had to the Red Cross. Could you spare me fifty dollars, say, +and take it out of my next allowance?" + +Archie silently got out his check-book. + +It troubled her to notice in him something almost like apathy toward the +war. The startling headlines, the growing report of horrors, even the +eleventh-hour miracle of that stand upon the Marne, moved him to no more +than a preoccupied attention. He appeared to concern himself far more +with the uncertain state of the stock-market, which he studied +assiduously. Joan could not accustom herself to the idea of an Archie +commercialized: interesting himself at such a crisis in the world's +history merely with money. + +An explanation at last dawned upon her. "My dear," she accused him one +day, "I believe you've been speculating!" + +"Who--me? Oh, every man speculates, sweetheart. Business itself is a +good deal of a speculation nowadays. Nothing to worry your precious head +about, though." + +"Would you like me to economize, Archie, more than I usually do?" she +asked. + +"Oh, no. You're never extravagant. A little more or less can't matter." + +Preoccupied though he seemed, he was never too preoccupied to show her +the special consideration and gentleness she had noticed ever since +Nikolai left. + +"As if he were trying to comfort me!" she thought uneasily. Her queer +outburst of nerves with Stefan was something she never allowed herself +to think of. She did not quite understand it; and Joan dreaded things +she could not understand. + +Archie seemed to be developing nerves himself of late. When the doorbell +or telephone rang suddenly, he jumped as if he had been touched; and he +went to his office almost every evening, coming home late and very +tired. + +"You're working too hard, old boy," protested Joan. "I'll be glad when +the treasurer of your company feels well enough to come back from +Saranac and take his old job again." + +"He's back now. I expect to turn the books over to him in a few days." + +"Good! I'm glad of it." + +"Are you?" asked Archie, rather queerly. + +"Of course!--though it means less salary, doesn't it? What do we care? +We had enough before. You know, dear, money simply means _nothing_ to +me, so long as the bills are paid." + +"I know," he said soberly. + +Perhaps if she had been less obsessed with the war, Joan might have been +better prepared for what was coming.... + +One day, on her way home from the Red Cross rooms, she bought herself an +early edition of an evening paper, and was looking over the headlines +when she came across the following: + + SHORTAGE DISCOVERED + BOOKS OF MOORE AND COMPANY IN HANDS OF EXPERT + +Farther down, aghast, incredulous, she read the name of her husband. + +When she reached home, he was already there. Johnny Carmichael and Ellen +were with him, both talking at once. They stopped as Joan came bursting +in. + +"Archie! This can't be _true_?" + +He had risen to go to her. Now he sank back in his chair, nodding. + +"I been tellin' him he's got to git out while the gittin's good," +muttered Ellen Neal, her language consorting oddly with the tense fear +in her face. "Here's plenty of money"--she held out a battered +pocket-book. "He can hop on the L. & N. train as it passes Fourth +Street. They ain't a minute to waste! The main thing's to git him away +before they--take him!" + +"She's right!" insisted Johnny Carmichael, stuttering with excitement. +"Once he's out of the way, my father'll get everything fixed. He's +closeted with Moore now. We've stopped that beastly article in the +paper--lots of people won't have seen the first edition. Father's taken +on the case--Mrs. Blair, you've got to make Archie _wake up_!" + +But Joan could not speak. + +Archie rose to his feet again. He seemed invested with a new, quiet +dignity. He put a hand on each of their shoulders. + +"I'm not going to run, of course," he said. "Thank you just the same. +Now cut along, will you? I want to talk to my wife." + + + + +CHAPTER LII + + +Always afterwards, in thinking of that nightmare time, Joan remembered +with a stab of remorse that when he held out his arms to her she had not +gone to them--He did not make the mistake again. + +In the hour they had together before others came, he made things as +plain to her as he could. The sum was not large as defalcations go. +Moore and Company would not suffer for it--they were a rich firm; and +later when he had served out his term he would be able to pay them back. +This he repeated over and over. + +The trouble had commenced with the purchase of the house. It was too +ambitious. Archie, struggle as he might, had begun shortly to fall +behind with the payments, and had borrowed more money on it to meet +them. (Joan recalled signing the papers, which meant nothing to her; +merely "business.") Somehow, what Archie made never went quite far +enough. Not through her fault!--this, too, he insisted upon again and +again. How was she to guess how things were, so long as her own and the +household allowances were paid to her regularly? + +"Oh, but why didn't you _tell_ me?" + +"A fellow don't like to admit that he's bitten off more than he can +chew, till he's sure." + +So he had tried a little speculating, and won; a little more, and won +again. (It was at this time that he bought Joan her modest automobile.) +After that, the story is too trite to need repeating. There came the +depression of 1913, later the cataclysm of the war; and Archie with the +finances of Moore and Company at his disposal. He lost, heavily, and +borrowed to protect himself; recovered enough to replace his borrowings; +went in deeper--and was caught with no means of making good some +$15,000. + +"Our house?" suggested Joan, trembling. + +"Mortgaged up to the eaves. Our equity in it wouldn't be a drop in the +bucket." + +"What about your stock in that Building Association!" + +He laughed. "Swallowed up so long ago I'd forgotten I ever had any.... +No, dear, I'm done. I took a long chance, and I took it once too often. +Nothing for it but to serve out whatever term they give me, and then +come back and--show 'em." His set jaw quivered a little. + +"'Serve out'--Archie! You don't mean _jail_?" + +He nodded, still with his amazing quietness. "I want to. It's coming to +me. And I'm young yet. You'll see!... But that don't mean _you're_ to be +mixed up in it," he added, slowly. "When I go to the Pen, that lets you +out, dear. You get your freedom. Nobody will expect you to--to stay +married to a criminal." + +He was watching her closely, and she stared back at him. He had proposed +the monstrous idea seemingly in all seriousness, as if it were one to +which he had given long consideration. + +"Don't talk that way!" she said, with sudden sternness. "Of course you +are not to go to jail. I'll fix that somehow--I'll get the money." + +But still she could not go to him, could not offer him any comfort. She +was too stunned. This did not seem to her Archie, this quiet stranger +who spoke so casually of penitentiaries and criminals and divorce. + +They were glad when people came to interrupt them. + +And people did come, in a steady stream. It seemed as if half the town +had read that hastily suppressed news-item, and were determined that +Archie Blair should not go to prison. + +"It's most worth while getting into trouble to see how many friends +you've got you never knew about!" he sighed. + +The rescuers began with Effie May, check-book in hand and panting with +distress, so upset that she had forgotten to rouge her face; and it +ended with Mr. Florsheimer of the Gents' Furnishing, who intimated that +if a couple of thou' at the usual rate of interest would be of any use +to Archie, they were his. + +The offer that perhaps touched him the most deeply came from the Misses +Darcy. + +"We happen to be at the moment temporarily embarrassed for funds," +explained Miss Iphigenia, at her stateliest, (and looking curiously like +her Cousin Richard). "But it will be a simple matter to arrange another +mortgage on our house. Dear papa did so frequently, I remember. And of +course in a--an accident of this sort--Why, my dear boy, that is what +houses are for!" + +But to all these suggestions Archie was able gratefully to explain that +his wife had already arranged matters. For as soon as she collected her +numbed faculties, she had telegraphed to Stefan Nikolai, and he had +replied within the hour: "Draw on me to any amount." + +"There," she remarked to the weeping Ellen. "That's the Jewness coming +out in him, just as you said it would!..." + +Ellen did all the weeping that was done in the Blair household during +this crisis. The shock seemed to have quite broken her, so that it was +the mistress who had to comfort the servant. + +"I'd ought to have known," she wailed, "with him lookin' so peakid and +all! But I thought it was--something else. Oh, why couldn't he have +_told_ me? I could have kep' the bills down more, had pot-roasts instead +of fancy-cuts, and hearts--you know how tasty beef-hearts can be, Joan, +when I set my mind to 'em! 'T aint as if I wasn't an old hand at makin' +things do. But you always had such rich ways, just like your father. And +I let it fool me.... Oh, the poor boy, the poor, scairt, lonesome boy, +tryin' to go ahead all by himself!" + +Joan's heart ached for her husband, too, as much as a heart can ache +that seems turned into stone. She felt physically numb all over, except +in her brain, and that worked mercilessly as ever--merciless not only to +him but to herself. She did not hesitate to put the blame where much of +it belonged. + +"I have been utterly selfish, one of the vampires that sap a man's +strength, his ability, his very decency, and give nothing in return. +Yet--does any one but a fool yield to vampires?" + +She tried to make for him every excuse he had not made for himself. + +"It was all for me, to give me what he thought I wanted, the things my +friends have. He could not bear to deprive me of anything." + +Yet he had deprived her of the thing she valued most in life: her pride. +He had committed the sin unpardonable. He had, as the English put it, +"let her down." She, Joan Darcy, in whom pride was the dominant trait, +pride of race, of intellect, of character--she was the wife of a +defaulter, a common thief! + +Despite people's marked kindness and consideration toward her, she +fancied she knew what they were saying: "An extravagant wife. A woman +who neglected her home and her husband." + +But of the charge of extravagance at least she was able to acquit +herself. The iron of poverty had entered too early and too deep into her +soul for that. She knew that dressing, for instance, cost her far less +than it cost any woman of her acquaintance. She had always made taste +and skill take the place of money there, and in other ways. Much that +was unusual in her little house she had done herself, staining walls, +painting woodwork, covering furniture. Where her neighbors employed +several servants, she did very well with one; and if she left much of +her household management in Ellen's hands, it was because she knew them +to be more experienced than her own. + +"No," she told herself, puzzling the thing over, "we have simply cut our +coat according to other people's cloth--And how was I to know?" + +It is the cry of many a startled wife whose husband has tried to keep on +his shoulders the burden two should share: How was I to know? + +She was comforted to think that no tradespeople at least were suffering +from their catastrophe; she owed not a dollar in the world.... Here Joan +winced, recalling her determination that there should be no "Indians" in +the annals of the Blair family. Archie, in order that she might pay +bills promptly, had allowed her to pay them with other people's money! + +His own attitude was incredible to her. He seemed not particularly +ashamed, nor even down-cast; if anything, rather relieved that the +strain was over. The enormity of the thing he had done did not appear to +impress him. He was more like a man who has bet too heavily at the +races, but means to show himself a good loser. For the first time Joan +considered seriously the mystery surrounding his birth. Emily Carmichael +had been right--it was "brave" to marry a man of such doubtful +antecedents. Who knew what handicaps were his to fight, what heritage of +moral obliquity? + +There was after all a certain safety in good birth, she +thought--forgetting that traditions and fine breeding had not sufficed +to keep her own father from a slight moral obliquity, such as had +permitted him to speculate with trust-funds. (Of the Major's earlier +misadventure she never learned.) + +And then a sudden rush of reaction came over her. Archie--and moral +obliquity! It was as impossible to associate the two as to associate a +fine dog with treachery. He had simply, for her sake, chosen to take his +long chance and abide by the consequences. An act more gallant, more +blindly, foolishly, needlessly sacrificial, had never been laid upon the +altar of love. And yet--she could not forgive him for it. + +"It must be because I do not care for him," she told herself stonily; +and was glad in her heart that his children had not lived. + + + + +CHAPTER LIII + + +But if she could not offer Archie the tenderness he craved, she gave him +at least all the other assistance in her power. Her executive ability +stood them both in good stead. + +It was she who interviewed Mr. Moore, far more successfully than Judge +Carmichael had done, persuading him not only to hush the matter up but +to retain Archie in his employ. "If I can afford to take another chance +on him, surely you can?" she insisted; an argument which the dazzled old +gentleman found quite unanswerable. + +Within a week she had procured an excellent tenant for the house, +furnished, with privilege of sale at a month's notice. She had disposed +of her little car at a good price, and placed Pegasus for the time being +in the Carmichael stable. + +"I can't sell her, of course, nor give her away--it would be like +selling or giving away Ellen Neal! But if you'll just ride her, Emily, +and play with her sometimes? She's used to a good deal of attention." + +"I'll probably spoil her to death," promised Emily, deeply touched by +this first sign of sentiment she had seen in her friend during that +tragic time. + +Joan moved about her pretty house, cleaning, packing, getting things in +order for the tenant, as calmly as if she were not leaving it forever. +Even in the nursery she was perfectly composed, until she came upon the +toys Ellen had hidden there. Then she locked the door for awhile, and +neither Emily nor Ellen dared go to her. + +"But what are we going to do ourselves?" moaned Ellen, rocking +helplessly to and fro in her kitchen. All her self-reliance had deserted +her. She was suddenly an old woman. + +"I haven't decided yet, dear. One thing at a time," replied her +mistress, steadily.... + +But in the end it was Archie who decided. + +He had acquiesced without comment in all Joan's arrangements. Only once +had he protested. It was when she telegraphed Stefan Nikolai for the +money. + +"Not that, Joan--not that, _please_!" he said, with a quick flush. "I'd +rather go to the Pen than that--Really, the Pen will be quite a rest for +me," he added, piteously. + +"Nonsense!" she replied; and he said no more. + +But for all his acquiescence, he did not seem to be numbed by the thing, +as Joan was. Though she often heard him walking up and down his room at +night, and suffered for him, at times he appeared almost happy. + +"I can't get over how _good_ people are!" he said once. "Think of Mr. +Moore being willing to take me back! Not as manager, of course--the boys +wouldn't be wanting to take orders from me yet awhile. Nor I couldn't +expect to handle money. But he sent for me, and said I was the best +salesman he'd ever had, and offered me the old job back on a commission +basis! Pretty nice, what?" + +"Shall you take it?" she asked, curiously. She herself could not have +faced disgrace with any such meekness. + +"Take it? Why, I jumped at the chance!" + +Joan flushed. + +"Archie," she said suddenly, "do you realize that there's a war going on +over there in Europe! Do you realize that there is need in France for +every able-bodied man that's got a life to spare?--Have you thought of +that?" + +She was startled by the change in his face. The veins stood out on his +forehead, and his hands clenched. "Have I thought of it? God, girl, what +else do you suppose I've been thinking about the past year? I'd give the +soul out of my body to slip away from this--this grab-bag, and get into +a good clean fight--Those damned baby-killers! Gosh!--fight? Just give +me a chance at that dachshund of a Kaiser with my two bare hands! +But"--he made the little gesture that she realized was becoming +characteristic of him--a gesture of renunciation--"I've got to stay here +now. There isn't any money in soldiering." + +Her flush deepened. "Money! I never want to hear the word again. Haven't +you had enough to do with just 'money,' Archie?" + +"Not on your life," he said doggedly. "I've got to make a heap of it +before I'm through. Fifteen thousand dollars!--That reminds me," he went +on in another tone. "You say they need able-bodied men over there--don't +they need women, too? D'you suppose your friend Nikolai could find +something for you to do in that unit of his?" + +He caught the sudden gleam in her eye. + +"That would please you, wouldn't it?" he said quietly. "Of course it +would mean hard work, dangerous work, too, perhaps--but it's a great +chance for you, for anybody! To sort of help make history.... Mr. +Nikolai was talkin' to us once about those two kinds of happiness, +Hüttengluck and Heldengluck--remember? Well, I don't believe you're the +sort to be satisfied with any Hüttengluck--nor I wouldn't want you to +be. Take your chance, Joan--and don't lose it." His voice shook a +little. "I'd like mighty well to have somebody of my name mixed up in +this war somehow!" + +She put her hand on his--almost her first demonstration of tenderness +since the shock came; but the gleam had already died out of her eyes. + +"That's dear of you, Archie--fine and generous. But if your place is +here, mine is, too. I am not going to desert you. How can you think such +a thing? I mean to be a better wife to you than I have been. We've got +to start again, and start right. I want to help you...." + +And then inexplicably, unbelievably, the worm turned. His nerves had +strained too far. He shook off her hand as if it burned him. + +"Help!" he said roughly. "Help? A hell of a lot of help _you_ are! Going +around like a martyr, with a don't touch-me, how-dare-you look on your +face, as if I'd done the thing just to spite you! My God! A woman with +any guts to her--" + +"_Archie!_" + +"Oh, yes, that shocks you--such a fine lady as you are," He seemed to be +working himself up, like a woman in hysterics. "So grandly indifferent +to money, too!--just so's you've got enough of it. Who spent the money, +anyway?--tell me that! Was it me, who haven't bought myself so much as a +new pair of pants in three years?" + +She stared at him, mutely. "_So this_," she thought, "_is the real +man!_" His ears, his great, coarse hands--they meant something after +all. + +Her white look drove him into a further frenzy. "Oh, yes, glare at me, +if I'm good enough for you to glare at!--Let me tell you something--if +it's on my account you're staying, you needn't. That's all! It's a +_wife_ a man wants at a time like this, not any marble image, not any +tragedy-queen! Not any noble character that watches him out of the +corner of her eye, and if he's real good--pats him on the hand! I've had +enough of that!--Go on with your friend Nikolai," he cried violently. +"Try him out for six months or a year, and if he suits, and you don't +want to come back here--by God, you needn't!" + +"Archie," she said, trembling in every limb, "I shall leave your house +to-morrow." + +"Good!" he cried. "Good! And I'm going to beat you to it!" + +He strode to the kitchen door and flung it wide. "Come here, Ellen Neal, +and bear witness that I'm leaving this house first." + +The front door banged behind him.... + +The two women stared at each other. + +"Was that--was that _Mr. Archie_?" + +"Yes," said Joan, still trembling, "it was!--Come upstairs and help me +pack my trunk." + + + + +CHAPTER LIV + + +There is little to be said here about Joan's experiences in France. The +story of those is better told in her own remarkable letters, which began +shortly to appear in certain magazines; and in the book that followed. + +Stefan Nikolai had found her shelter with a friend of his, Lady +Arbuthnot, a clever old Englishwoman whose long horse-face and charming +voice and odd combinations of tweed skirt and evening blouses were known +and loved in every institution of mercy about Paris. Under Lady +Arbuthnot's guidance Joan found use for not only her Red Cross training +but for everything else she had, whether by gift or acquirement. +Singing, story-telling, "play-acting," letter-writing, even dancing, all +seemed as important a part of her equipment as the regulation sewing, +bandage-making, and cookery. She tried an inexperienced hand at washing +dishes and scrubbing floors. She also tried her hand at mending +shattered nerves and even broken hearts; and at none of these things was +she entirely unsuccessful. There was a certain power of concentration in +Joan that made failure unlikely in whatever she undertook. + +It was a wonderful time to her. She never got nearer the trenches than +Paris; but there the trenches came to her, with all their horror, their +sordid hideousness, their sheer, soul-stirring grandeur. She saw +shattered men struggling back to life that they might offer it again, +with eagerness; she saw philanthropists living in comfort on money that +had been obtained to feed starving refugees; she saw girl-children, who +had been forced to bear German babies, loving those babies with a +passion of maternity piteously beyond their years. Priests labored side +by side with panders; women of the great world, such as Lady Arbuthnot, +shared bed and board and ceaseless effort with W. C. T. U. workers from +Kansas, with missionaries out of China, with ex-courtesans from the +Paris streets, with those most sheltered of all aristocrats, the women +of the upper French bourgeoisie. + +It was humanity with all barriers down, all contacts clean and clear. +And Louisville, Kentucky, seemed as far away and negligible as the +planet Earth may seem to possible dwellers on the moon. + +Sometimes she had word from there--not often, for Ellen Neal was no +letter-writer, and even Emily Carmichael's loyalty had been strained by +Joan's unexplained desertion of her husband in his trouble. Once her +cousin Miss Iphigenia Darcy wrote, and from her letter Joan gathered +some impression of the effect of her sudden departure from Louisville. + + In my day girls were taught that their first duty was to the + _Home_, married or not. But I daresay this is a very + old-fashioned notion, and with all those poor, unfortunate + French needing help--Sister Euphie and Sister Virgie and I have + frequently discussed offering our services. It is strange to + have a war going on without any Darcys in it! (You haven't the + _name_, you see, although a _true Darcy_ in every other + particular.) However, it does not seem the place for + _unmarried_ ladies just now, with so many men lying about in + the hospitals not fully clothed, and those unfortunate Belgian + victims (you know what I mean)! As I tell everybody, "Advanced + young matrons like Joan are the ones really needed over there." + But you know how narrow people are, my dear! I sometimes think + our city is growing a little _provincial_. + +Joan smiled and sighed over this communication; and then forgot it. + +From Archie she had no word, except an occasional line or two with the +money-order that came regularly on the first of each month, and was as +regularly returned. The magazine connections Stefan Nikolai had made for +her provided what money she needed, and she had not yet sufficiently +forgiven Archie to be willing to accept anything from him. + +At first she wrote to him, not so much from any sense of duty, as from +pity. She did not forget what had passed between them, she made no +attempt to ignore the fact that he had failed her utterly in every way. +But she no longer had time to brood upon her own affairs. In the vortex +of life where she now found herself, personal troubles seemed somehow to +disappear into the common whole. Constant association with others' +sorrow developed her quality of sympathy to an almost painful extent; +and though she knew that Ellen Neal was making Archie comfortable enough +in the old rooms on Poplar Street, his loneliness, his humble +acquiescence in disgrace, hurt like a bruise on her heart. So she wrote +to him, impersonally but kindly. + +Since he so rarely replied, however, her letters gradually ceased. +Evidently Archie, like many others, found it difficult to forgive where +he had wronged. Joan shrugged--a little gesture she had learned from +Nikolai--and dismissed her husband as much as possible from her mind. + +There was much else to occupy it: not only in the way of work but of +pleasure. Paris, even in her grief, did not forget the human necessity +for pleasure, nor did Stefan Nikolai. She saw rather less of him than +she had expected to, for he was frequently absent for weeks at a time on +unexplained journeys, about which Joan had learned to ask no questions. +But whether he was near her or not, she was always conscious of his +enveloping care, his devoted watchfulness. He gave her, too, many +friends besides Lady Arbuthnot. + +Once Sacha, always left on guard over Joan during these absences of +Nikolai's, betrayed the fact that his master had gone into Russia. Joan +taxed him with it when he returned. + +"Russia is not safe for you, Stefan!--you told me so yourself." + +"Surely you would not have me at such a time seek only places of +safety?" he smiled. + +"Why can't you stick to the hospital work you came over for, instead of +gallivanting about all over the place?" she demanded, with a petulance +that concealed anxiety. + +"One goes where one is useful," he replied quietly. "There are many who +know more about medicine than I, but few who know more about +Russia--except in Germany, perhaps! My countrymen are very susceptible +to the spoken word." + +It was his only explanation of his frequent disappearances; but Joan, +understanding that wars must be won not only on the battlefield, uttered +no more protests, and made the most of her friend when she had him. + +For the first time in her life, she came near to the innermost meaning +of the word happiness. It was not the placid content of her +"pasture-time," nor the feverish, half-guilty ecstasy which had come to +her for a brief hour through the unworthy medium of Eduard Desmond. It +wrapped her round warmly like the consciousness of some beloved +presence--which indeed it was, though Joan for once did not quite dare +to analyze the sensation. She only knew that here, among strangers +speaking a strange tongue, she was for the first time in her experience +utterly at home. And she was curiously at the top of her powers. In that +atmosphere, nothing seemed impossible of accomplishment. There was a +sense of personal possession and being possessed--"By Paris," she told +herself; but in her heart another name echoed. + +Unaware, the great experience, the thing for which she had blindly +groped, had come upon her; not with a sudden leap to which her nature +leaped in response, but with a slow, quiet, irresistibly gathering +force, like a great stream that bore her upon its breast, without +volition, without struggle, toward some bourne of which she had no +knowledge. And no fear. + +Joan might have said with Browning: + + "Let us be unashamed of soul ... + Is it in our control + To love or not to love?" + +It is always the body that suggests shame; and the body had ever been a +negligible part of Joan's make-up. She felt as independent of it now as +if she were already spirit, floating about in space--always with this +certainty of meeting there another spirit, however, and mingling with +it. + +This spiritual mingling was a matter she never discussed with +Nikolai--the only thing in the universe, perhaps, which they did not +discuss. Theirs was an understanding too close for words, and beyond +words.... But sometimes, when Joan remembered that she had once feared +love, believing it one of those things that are better done without, she +smiled to herself; an inner, brooding smile that gave the final touch of +the chisel to her features, and made her much sought by painters. + +Paris seemed more than usual that year the rendezvous for people who had +won distinction in the arts and sciences, and who came to render their +patron city in her hour of need what assistance was in their power. +Among these people Nikolai was made welcome with an eagerness, and even +a deference, which delighted Joan, and a little surprised her; for his +simplicity made it easy to forget that he belonged among famous folk as +a matter of right. + +On his account, perhaps a little on her own as well, Joan also was +welcomed by them. She was not at all abashed by the company of +greatness, having inherited from Richard Darcy the naïve conviction that +the best was good enough for her; and moreover she found among them the +keen power of enjoyment that invariably accompanies high mental +development. She had long since suspected, and now proved, that only +thinking people know how to play. + +It was a great relief to her, just then, to be with strangers who +accepted her entirely at face-value, with neither curiosity nor demand. +An unquestioning, simple freedom prevailed in these upper reaches which +Joan fancied might be dangerous enough (unless it had the effect of +putting people, as it were, on honor). Nobody enquired whether she had a +husband, for instance, or where he was. It seemed quite sufficient that +she was the young friend of Stefan Nikolai; "_Spiritosa e simpatica_," +as a certain great Italian tragedienne pronounced her. Their relations +were taken as a matter of course. The two were always included together +in whatever plans were afoot, and Joan noticed other such companionships +among them which passed equally unquestioned. She was nominally under +the care of Lady Arbuthnot; but that widely experienced noblewoman +displayed a carelessness of chaperonage that would have caused hair to +rise on the head of, say, Mrs. Carmichael. + +Joan was at perfect liberty to spend with her friend every hour that +either could spare from the day's duties, and did so. "Why not?" +appeared to be the attitude of a company which concerns itself more with +matters of the spirit than of the flesh.... + +In Louisville speculation was once more rife and lurid, sharing interest +only with the war headlines and with Joan Blair's latest letter to the +magazines. + +"We appear to have been nourishing Genius in our bosom unawares!" +remarked the Jabberwocks to each other; not altogether pleased, as is +the immemorial way of friendship. + +"I don't know why you were unaware," commented Emily Carmichael, +quietly. "She has always shown every earmark of genius, even to +neglecting the best husband that ever lived!" + +The Jabberwocks exchanged surprised and meaningful glances. + + + + +CHAPTER LV + + +Into the busy abstraction of Joan's Paris life came presently one of her +step-mother's rare letters. It was a round, childish, yet curiously firm +scrawl written on lavender paper (Effie May having abandoned pink +effects in honor of her widowhood), which for some reason brought home +to Joan her father's little city so clearly that she could almost smell +it; a distinctive summer smell compounded of hot asphalt, blossoming +ailanthus trees, and a suggestion of the glue-factory. + + Folks here are making bets as to whether you ever mean to come + back again, + +(wrote Effie May). + + And why should you? is what I say. I keep thinking how pleased + Major would be to have you hobnobbing with lady earls and + famous characters and high life generally. It's just where you + belong, and so did he. + + Archie comes to see me real often, and he don't look so poorly + as he did at first. He's got him up a regiment, mostly Y. M. C. + A. fellows and a few old boys with stummicks and bald heads, + and I hear they drill real cute. He goes horseback riding a + good deal with the Carmichael girl, too, and I guess it does + him good. Ellen says he seems more peckish for his meals. + +(Here Joan laid down the letter, thoughtfully. "Emily!--Well, why not? +She always did like him. I'm glad," she mused. She certainly was not +going to begrudge her husband the freedom she asked for herself.) + + Ellen comes in every day to look after things for me, now that + I'm laid up. She don't like me any better than she used to, and + I expect she just thinks it's a family duty, but I'm glad to + have her anyhow. I keep nigger help now, the white ones being + so hard to get, and I'm not the hand with them your father was. + I never saw any one get as much out of niggers as Major + could!--out of white folks, too, for that matter, couldn't he? + + Of course I'm not so sick as the doctors make out (they got to + earn the money somehow), but it's hard to sleep sitting up this + way, and sometimes at night I get to thinking. So I made a + will. I knew you'd never touch Calloway's money with a ten-foot + pole, but I thought maybe you wouldn't mind seeing it got spent + right. I want it to go to one of those shelters you told about + in the magazine, for little French girls with babies and no + husbands. Seems only fair, when I've had more than my share of + husbands and no kids. + + Paris seems awful far away, and I guess I better let you off + that promise you made me to see that I didn't get laid out with + no corset on. They probably couldn't get a corset on me now, + anyway, I'm that fleshy. Not that I'm ordering me a coffin for + anytime real soon, dearie! but sometimes at night a person gets + to thinking. + +Joan was rather startled by this letter, and sent for Nikolai. + +"What do you make of it, Stefan? That part: 'It's hard to sleep sitting +up this way'--what does it mean?" + +"I am afraid," he said gravely, "it means something serious--Advanced +heart-disease, probably. A woman of her weight would be liable to it." + +Joan gave an exclamation of dismay. In that moment she discovered that +she not only did not dislike Effie May; she was fond of her. The thought +of never again seeing the vulgar, cheery, friendly soul was unexpectedly +distressing. + +"Poor woman!--all alone there with her 'nigger help!' and Ellen sourly +doing her duty--Or is it _my_ duty?" She was not thinking entirely of +Effie May.... "Stefan"--her face blanched. "She was my father's wife. +She tried her best to be a mother to me. I owe her a good deal. Has the +time come to repay it? Does this mean--Oh, Stefan, do you think this +means I ought to go back? I've been so happy here, so useful! For the +first time in my life I have felt that I really 'belonged.' These people +who are doing things--" + +She gazed at him beseechingly. It gradually dawned upon her that what +she dreaded so to leave was not these people who were doing things, not +that larger, freer life to which Nikolai had given her the key; not even +the Spirit that met her Spirit there in space. It was Nikolai himself, +the man, the comrade--the lover. + +Her whole being seemed to rush out to meet the need that suddenly gazed +at her from Nikolai's eyes.... + +"Stefan," she said very low, "_must_ I go back?" + +For a moment he did not answer. Then he said, his voice not quite under +control "You expect me to decide that for you? My dear, you ask too +much." + +He took his hat and left; but Joan knew that he had decided. + + * * * * * + +They walked up and down the _quai_ for an hour or so before the gangway +was drawn in. Joan always afterwards remembered what they said, as one +recalls the least syllable of the dying. There was a sense of finality +about this parting, against which she struggled in vain. + +She filled her eyes with him as if she had never seen him before, and +would not again. She noted little physical details which had hitherto +escaped her--the fine cameo cutting of his features, the long, +sensitive, expressive hands, the air he shared with many Europeans of +belonging to an older, more finished race than her own. In his calm +impassivity there was a suggestion of Slavic fatalism, combined with the +tragic patience of the Jew. Only his eyes smoldered with an unquenchable +spark that flamed to hers. + +She knew that the Romance which had always eluded her was here at her +side, in the person of this perfect comrade, this shadowy, insistent +influence in her life which was about to withdraw into the shadows +again. Perhaps she understood, too, that Romance to remain Romance must +be elusive. Seized and held, it changes into something else. Yet she +tried to cling to it. + +"You will be right here waiting on this spot when I come back, won't +you, Stefan?--For I _will_ come back," she exclaimed as he did not +answer. "Say that you know I will!" + +"I know that you will do whatever seems to you right." + +She made a mutinous face at him. "That's more than I know! I'm much more +likely to do whatever seems to me nice--Oh, Stefan, why will you persist +in believing in me always, no matter how badly I behave?" Lightly as she +spoke, her eyes were fixed on him, telling him consciously what her lips +could not utter. + +He answered at one of his usual tangents. "Do you not know that every +splinter of a genuine Cremona violin vibrates to the bow on as true a +tone as did the unbroken instrument?" + +"You mean--Mother," she said. "Oh, but I'm not all Cremona! I think +there's a good deal in me of the fiddle Nero played while Rome burned. +It's not _fair_ to be expected to live up to a self-sacrificing mother! +If you don't, you have failed her; if you do, she gets the +credit--Besides, I'm needed here just as much as I am in Louisville. +More! Not only these poor people need me, but--you do, Stefan." + +She had brought it into the open at last, the one thing which they had +never yet discussed in their discussions of everything under the sun; +that eternal human question of Thou-and-I. She was a little frightened, +dreading yet eager for the answer. + +It was long in coming. Nikolai understood the crisis they had reached. +He knew that it was his to put out his hand and hold her, to keep +forever in his life this one gift of the gods he craved, the fulfilled +hope which had been his beacon through many a lonely year. Once before +because of a mistake in judgment he had lost her, to her own +unhappiness. There must be no more mistakes in judgment. + +But the habit of truth in thought and word was too great for him. + +"No," he said at last, "I do not need you." + +He saw her wince. + +"I do not need you," he repeated steadily, "and you do not need me, +Joan. People like us get on quite well alone. Better, perhaps. It is not +good for us to be too happy--Besides, what we already have of each other +cannot be affected by time or space. You know that? The rest--is +extraneous. Tell me this: Have you ever in any important moment of your +life forgotten me, have you ever failed to be conscious of my presence, +no matter what the distance between us?" + +She looked deep into the luminous eyes fixed upon hers. + +"Never, Stefan. Even in my unthinking school-days, even in that strange +time after I lost my babies and could not write to you, I have counted +upon you always. Everything that has come to me, good or bad, big or +little, I have shared with you in my thoughts. Only--I did not realize +it." + +"That," he said quietly, "is marriage. Your mother realized it. She knew +when you were only a child of the tie between us--But she and I thought +that I must keep away from you until the accident of time corrected +itself. You see we have been sent into this incarnation rather far +apart." + +"You kept away too long, Stefan!" + +"I know. But what does it matter?" He spoke half to himself, with his +little shrug. "This manifestation or the next--we shall not be apart +always." + +"No, no!" she cried, catching at his hand. "That is too ethereal, too +mystic for me--I can't bear it, Stefan! I want the people I love with me +_now_, in this 'manifestation,' as you call it, where I can talk with +them, and touch them, and hold on to them--I am not all spirit. I +thought I was, but--I'm not. Oh, my dear, aren't you human _at all_?" + +He did not reply; and Joan, looking at him through swimming tears, saw +that it was because he could not. + +She dropped his hand. "Forgive me!" she whispered. "I will try to climb +up to you--since you will not come down to me.... But you must help me." + +"I will help," said Nikolai. + +They spoke a little later of Archie, who had been all the while at the +back of their thoughts. Both knew it was to him she was returning, +rather than to her step-mother. + +"You expect too much of him, Joan--you always expect too much of people. +Try to take them as you find them. He is one of the many who think +better with their hearts than with their heads." + +She commented with a faint smile, "My step-mother once told me that +there was nothing in the world so dangerous as what she called +'bone-headedness.'" + +"Exactly!--especially to the bone-headed--Your Archie is no fool, +however. There are perhaps fewer convolutions in his gray matter than in +ours, that is all. He has made mistakes with his head, and will again. +But with his heart--never." + +"You are not condoning," she asked slowly, "what Archie has done?" + +He answered after a little pause, "To me there seems nothing +unforgivable, nothing utterly vicious, except selfishness. There is no +self in Archie Blair. Not enough self." + +Joan told him then reluctantly of something she had never before +mentioned: her final incredible scene with her husband. She was +curiously ashamed of that scene, as though it were she who had betrayed +herself, instead of Archie. "Should you not call that a mistake of the +heart?" + +But Nikolai did not appear to be particularly shocked by it. "I had no +idea," he commented, "that Blair was so good an actor." + +"An actor!--You think that scene was not genuine?" + +"I think, in fact I know, that your husband would hesitate to sacrifice +nothing to what he believed your happiness; even your respect--I love +that man," he said simply. "And so do you, Joan. Otherwise he would have +been powerless to hurt you." + +Her eyes widened. She asked, as so many before her have asked, "Is it +possible to love--two people at once?" + +"Two? A dozen--a hundred! Does a mother love two children at +once?--Surely that depends upon the stage of the soul's development." + +"But always one best," she said quite fiercely. + +"Always one best," he repeated.... + +The parting had come. Staring at him desperately, she saw in his eyes a +depth of pain and loneliness that made her own for the moment +insignificant. So much of his life was done; so much of hers, after all, +only beginning. + +"Oh, my dear, my dear!" she cried in a sort of bewilderment. "What is it +all about? Is there a purpose somewhere in this muddle of things? Why do +you say it is not good for people like us to be happy, when others go to +the end of their days in calm security? I do not want any--wicked +things, Stefan! I only want to be with you always. To take care of you +if you are sick, to mend your clothes, and make you comfortable, +and--love you. I want us to grow old together, not alone. Oh, my dear, +all your life you have been alone; and I can't bear it!--What is the +good of this thing that has waked in me at last, if I am not to use it?" + +"You are," he said steadily. "Emotion to be safe must, _must_ translate +itself into action." + +"But how, how? By doing for others, you are going to say--but it's such +a thankless task, Stefan! A red-blooded woman like me to take to +altruism, as some take to drugs!--Why must some of us live so intensely, +so consciously, only to be denied again and again the fulfilment that we +crave? Sinking our lives into those of lesser people, always of lesser +people!" + +He answered gently, "'_Car je suis le Cobzar._'--It is time you +understood.... You know what a Cobzar is?" + +She shook her head; and he told her. + +"In the more remote Magyar villages, news of the world comes to the +people by means of a sort of minstrel who is called the Cobzar. He is to +them not only newsbringer, but historian and poet and philosopher as +well. He is treated with respect, they reward his singing with food and +wine and a place beside the fire, for it is an honor to be born a +Cobzar. But not always a happy honor, Joan. People do not listen to +singing that comes out of an empty heart. It is the Cobzar's duty to +tell them the story of themselves, and that is only the story of +himself, wrought into many forms. Their fears and joys, their failures +and their suffering and their hopes--he must be part of it all, and yet +apart, that he may not only understand but watch, remembering always his +mission to bring life to the knowledge of those who live." + +He quoted for her then some lines which Joan never forgot: + + "Aime-moi, parce que j'ai besoin de ton amour pour mes chansons, + Va t'en, parce que j'ai besoin de pleurer pour mes chansons, + Meurs, parce que j'ai besoin de chanter la mort pour mes chansons, + Car je suis le Cobzar." + +The water widened between them.... + + + + +CHAPTER LVI + + +All during her homeward journey Joan had the feeling that she was waking +slowly from a long dream; such a dream as ether gives, more vivid than +reality itself but impossible of recapture. As he came literally nearer, +Archie grew to be the dominant figure in her thoughts rather than +Nikolai, though Nikolai was always there; Archie under the new light her +friend's parting words had shed upon him. It mortified her to realize +that another, almost a stranger to him, should have read her husband +better than she did. It occurred to her, too, that with Nikolai she had +not left behind her all Romance. A man who was capable of such a +sacrifice as Archie Blair's could not be entirely commonplace. Her eyes +had been suddenly opened. + +Perhaps this was part of the help Nikolai had promised. + +Indeed, her sentiments toward her husband became rather puzzling, being +composed so far as she could decipher them of a desire to comfort him +for the loss of herself, combined with a desire to be comforted by him +for the loss of Stefan.... + +Her fellow-travelers eyed Joan with more than the usual interest she +invariably excited among strangers; but to no avail. It was a time when +what few barriers exist on shipboard at best went down in the sharing of +a common peril, the menace of the submarine. Not so with Joan, however. +She seemed unaware of friendly advances or invidious criticism: wrapped +in a curious aloofness, from danger and from her fellowman alike. Nor +was it an aloofness that would pass. + +She had her great renunciation to make, and faced it; a renunciation +which took the most difficult form, of dedication. Loneliness was upon +her, not loneliness as she had known it before, a groping restlessness, +a dissatisfaction. There was nothing left to grope for. She knew quite +well now what she wanted, had always wanted, and might never have; but +she knew, too, that on this solitary road of life, the warm human clasp +of hands is something, the warm human touch of lips.... Thinking of +Archie as Nikolai thought of him, her heart seemed to be stretching, +literally expanding, with growing-pains; so that there might be room in +it for two--or for a dozen, a hundred, as he had promised. + +And presently she was able to return in spirit to the first night of her +marriage, when for a little interval of time she had lost Joan the +individual, and become simply the woman, whose mission is to give.... + +She had thought so much of her husband that she was quite prepared to +find him waiting at the dock for her, yellow boots, Derby hat, and all. +But he was not there, nor yet at the station in Louisville, though she +had wired him from New York the date and hour of her coming. + +Only two of the Misses Darcy were there to meet her, in Effie May's +limousine, their manner nicely adjusted between melancholy, importance, +and the _empressement_ due a distinguished relative returning from +foreign parts. + +"Yes, my dear, she is low, very low! Restoratives have to be +administered constantly," sighed Miss Virginia. "What a charming hat! +Paris, I suppose? I always have maintained that the French touch--So +that is why Sister Iphigenia is not here to meet you. We three take +turns at watching with her. Your husband comes every night, and Ellen +Neal makes herself useful, though why she should, with two nurses--No +expense spared, of course. So pleasant to be able to die in such luxury, +isn't it? She has been watching for you every day--seemed to be quite +certain you were coming, even before she had your cablegram." + +Joan interrupted this lugubrious chatter to ask the immediate +whereabouts of Archie. The sisters exchanged uneasy glances. + +"Cousin Effie May happened to mention that he was out riding this +afternoon. Doubtless he had made some engagement before your letter +came, or I am sure--" Miss Euphemia nudged her visibly into silence. + +"I see," said Joan, flushing a trifle.... + +If Effie May was as "low" as reported, she showed little sign of it. She +welcomed Joan in her usual loud and cheery tones, magnificent in a new +lavender tea-gown, as pink-cheeked and carefully coiffed as ever. At her +elbow was a box of chocolates. + +"I knew that letter'd fetch you!" she chuckled. "Sort o' pitiful, wasn't +it? People were mighty surprised to hear you were coming back. But not +me. You're not so hard-shelled as you try to be, girlie!" + +Like the Misses Darcy, she displayed immediate interest in the Paris +hat. + +"Chick as it can be," she pronounced approvingly. "I certainly am glad +you're not high-brow enough yet to neglect your looks. No woman on earth +is smart enough to be able to wear a hat that don't become her." + +"There's a love of a hat in my trunk for you," laughed Joan, a weight +lifting from her heart. (She decided that her hasty and dangerous +journey had been a wild-goose chase so far as her step-mother was +concerned. This was not her idea of a death-bed interview.) "A black +crêpe poke with a white lining, Effie May. Paris still does her mourning +'chickly'--poor Paris!" + +The invalid's eye gleamed. "I might be trying it on when the doctor +comes.... Oh, yes, dearie, he's taking notice!" Her several chins +quivered with mirth. "But nothing doing. My heart's in the grave with +Major--And Calloway," she added, dreamily. "I been thinking about the +two of 'em so much lately that I declare I get 'em sort of mixed in my +mind!" + +She made Joan sit down beside her and tell her at once all about Paris, +and how many noblewomen she had met, and what they wore, and whether it +was true that Frenchmen took more notice of married women, even of +middleaged ones than of girls. + +"Paris is the burg for me!" she sighed. + +But in the midst of Joan's liveliest recital, her head dropped suddenly +forward and she fell asleep. It was the other's first intimation that +she had not come after all upon a wild goose chase. + +She sat for a moment looking at this woman who had tried to be a mother +to her, with her absurd golden head and beringed, puffy hands. Then, +following an impulse rare with her, she stooped and kissed the painted +cheek very tenderly. It was a pity that Effie May did not know. + +She slipped away to the telephone and called up the Carmichael house. +The maid told her that Miss Emily was at home. + +("So _she's_ not out riding with him!" thought Joan.) + +Emily appeared politely surprised by her friend's arrival. + +"Yes, Archie tells me how ill your step-mother is. I am so sorry! You +say you will be here some time before you go back? I shall hope to see +you, then." + +"I hope you may," replied Joan even more politely, "but unfortunately I +shall be very busy.... Look here, Emily Carmichael, what's the matter +with you anyway? Come right over here and explain." + +Emily came. + +When the two had had their talk out and parted, tear-stained but +reconciled, Joan went once more to the telephone and called up her +husband. + +His familiar voice over the wire gave her an unexpected thrill. She had +forgotten how big and warm it was, even when he sang out of tune. + +"Archie," she asked directly, "why weren't you at the station to meet +me?" + +He stammered out some rather breathless excuse. + +"Yes, I know all about that--Emily told me that she often gets you to +exercise Pegasus for her when she hasn't time. But why to-day +particularly, when you knew I was coming?" + +His voice was under better control now. "Why, you see, I didn't think it +would look well for us to be seen together just now--" + +"Wouldn't look well!" + +"Why, no, Joan. You've got a pretty good case of abandonment--I left the +house first, you know--but if we were to be seen together the minute you +get home, sort of friendly-like, it might get to the ears of the Judge +and prejudice him. When the whole thing's settled, of course, then--" + +Joan gasped. + +"What do you mean," she interrupted, "by a case of abandonment?" + +"You wouldn't care to bring suit on any other grounds, would you!" he +asked anxiously. "The fact is I'm afraid you couldn't, Joan. There +_aren't_ any other grounds." + +"Oh," she said blankly. "I understand.... Well, my dear, I'm sorry you +feel that you can't come and say at least hello to me--'sort of +friendly-like.'" + +"So am I," he answered, gently.... + + * * * * * + +Joan wandered back to her step-mother's room, feeling queer and dazed. +She had never before realized that anything other than death might be +irremediable. + +During all her months in Paris she had not even contemplated the +possibility of divorcing Archie. She was blindly content with things as +they stood, and it had not occurred to her that Archie might be +otherwise, that he had seriously meant, for his own sake, perhaps, the +suggestion he had once made to her. She was so used to doing his +thinking for him. + +Divorce!--that refuge of the foolish, the frail, those so lacking in +pride as to be willing to confide their failures to the world! + +"It is so--so unnecessary," she protested aloud, wondering vaguely why +the phrase was familiar to her. Then with a start she recognized it as +one of Eduard Desmond's. + +The hot blood rushed into her face. Did they--Emily, Effie May, even +Archie himself--believe her capable of the sort of thing Eduard Desmond +meant? Dropping one husband to take on another--or perhaps taking on +another without dropping the first? Was this the interpretation that had +been put upon her life abroad, her precious companionship with +Nikolai?--She shivered. No wonder Archie had not cared to come to see +her! + +For once the thought of Nikolai was of no comfort to her. She put it +from her almost with horror. It seemed to her that their relationship +was irreparably smirched, degraded, by the touch of profane hands.... + + * * * * * + +She hoped that Effie May had awakened from her doze, so great was her +need just then of the shrewd, tolerant, entirely human counsel of her +step-mother. + +But Effie May had not awakened; nor did she wake again. + + + + +CHAPTER LVII + + +The funeral did great credit to the Misses Darcys' experience in such +affairs. A crowded, beflowered church bore witness to the fact that +Darcy was still a name to be reckoned with in the community. Not only +the best people were there in quite sufficient numbers, but many of +those lesser folk whose duties bring them happily into touch with the +best people; milliners, modistes, clerks in the better shops, and so +forth. + +As Mr. Florsheimer of the Gents' Furnishing remarked to Miss Murphy of +the Silks: "Such a loss to trade, ain't she?" + +Among these humbler friends not a few genuine tears were shed, however, +for Effie May had scattered her kindness impartially. + +Joan, in solitary state as chief mourner, with the Misses Darcy sadly +rustling in the pew behind her, was conscious of many curious glances +turned her way. Perhaps her husband was the only person there whose eyes +never turned in her direction. She was glad of her heavy veil, through +which she might study him unobserved. + +He sat just opposite among the other pall-bearers, grave and quiet, with +the odd dignity still about him which had come at the time of his +disgrace. She noted new lines in his face, an unexpected touch of gray +in his boyish, curling hair. The ears, the freckles, the great, clumsy +hands were still much in evidence; but somehow Archie had lost forever +his slight touch of the ridiculous. Declining to run away from disgrace, +facing his music, humbly but unafraid, it occurred to Joan that her +husband was approaching rather nearly her own and her father's standard +of gentlehood. + +"Blessings brighten," she reminded herself, grimly, "as they take their +flight!..." + +She came presently under the soothing spell of the old cathedral, a +shabby, not very beautiful edifice left stranded in a neighborhood no +longer its own, but whose pews still bore the names of the town's first +citizens, gentlemen who had been her father's boyhood playmates, and +whose fathers had worshiped there with his father. Oddly enough, +considering how little time she had spent within its walls, the echoing +dimness of it gave Joan her first sense of home-coming. This old house +of God, that had witnessed so many ends and so many beginnings of human +endeavor, had gathered into itself the heart of a city. + +A warm heart, it was, thought Joan; despite those speculative glances +fixed upon her. She recalled people's kindness to Archie in his trouble, +their quick response to any call upon their sympathy, their willingness +to give every stranger his chance. She remembered their invincible +hospitality, whether in wealth or poverty; the ardor with which they +entered into the interest of the moment, be it work or play, their +generous admiration for any fellow-citizen who made a success in the +world. A warm heart, she thought, and a loyal one. + +She understood in that moment why it was that the people of this little +city rarely drifted too far away to come back again. Just as the human +body claims in the end its six feet of earth for a resting-place, so +must the human spirit claim its bit of the world for a resting-place, a +Neighborhood. The tragedy of a wandering life such as Nikolai's was, she +saw, in its detachment from common human interests, from a Neighborhood. +Better a tree, with its roots in friendly soil, as he had once said. + +Cast her out though it might, Joan knew that her Neighborhood was here, +here among her father's people.... + +A trolley-car clanged past, and the challenge of the peanutman came +cheerfully in at the open door. "Pop-corn, Lady? Yere's your fine fraish +roasted peanuts, right off the hopper!" + +The little lads in the choir stirred restlessly to this voice of the +summer outside. "Lead, Kindly Light," they warbled in a piercing young +treble, with now and then the Bishop's robust tones added in a +hospitable effort to make the thing go. + +Joan's irrepressible fancy recalled the last occasion on which she had +heard this noble anthem. It was at the Country Club, where some +irreverent wag was playing it in rag-time; and Effie May had danced to +it merrily, Lightfoot Ef with her indulgent Major. Joan wondered whether +Lightfoot Ef might be remembering, too, and smiling perhaps in her +coffin.... + +But out at the cemetery her queer sense of elation vanished. Here, in +the shadow of her father's monolith, with Mary's modest headstone on one +side, a yawning grave on the other, at her feet two mounds so small as +hardly to be noticed, the aloneness of the human soul suddenly smote her +with such force that she could not stand under it. Was she never to know +again that human touch of hands and of lips? Was her only neighborhood +after all to be this quiet city of the dead? + +She went quite dizzy and might have fallen, but for the quick arm that +supported her; whose in that bitter moment she neither knew nor cared. +But she was not surprised to find herself presently alone in a carriage +with Archie. + +"I guess I oughtn't to have done this," he apologized, when he saw that +she could listen to him. "I just didn't think--out there. I'll go as +soon as you feel better, dear. Where do you want the driver to take +you!" + +"Home," she said. It was no more than a whisper. + +"You mean to Mrs. Darcy's house? Won't that be pretty gloomy for you +just now? Better let him take you to your cousins'--or to Miss Emily's. +How would that be? I know she'd he mighty glad to have you." + +Joan gathered herself together for an effort. It seemed to her, faint as +she was, that much depended upon this moment. But for once her eloquence +failed her. She could only repeat that she wanted to go home. + +Archie understood her trembling better than her speech, perhaps. He, +too, began to tremble. + +"I--I haven't got any home now, Joan. Only the old attic-room in Poplar +Street--" + +She cried out, painfully, "Archie! don't you _want_ me any more?..." + +In his arms at last, her face pressed roughly against the familiar +roughness of his coat, words returned to her. She quoted her husband's +sole adventure into poetry: + + "A book of verses underneath the roof, + A cup of coffee and an egg, in troof, + And Mrs Neal to cook it up for us-- + Ah, attic life were Paradise enoof." + +Archibald did his faithful best to laugh; but the effort was not +successful. + + * * * * * + +So it happened that they were received from a funeral as they had once +been from a wedding, into the portal of an ancient, friendly mansion +whose stairway still creaks to the tread of ghosts and broken people, +with now and then a happy footstep to remind it of its youth. And there +Ellen Neal, mounting stiffly and wearily with the aid of the curving +bannister, was hailed by a loud whisper from the floor above. + +"Hsst! Come on up and look who's here." + +A radiant Archie led her to his door, and exhibited the One and Only, +clad in his bathrobe, curled up asleep upon his bed. + +"Humph!" gulped Ellen through her tears. "I _knew_ that woman'd manage +to fix things somehow!" Which was a final reluctant tribute to the force +of kindness that had been Effie May. + + + + +TWO YEARS LATER + + +A distinguished, foreign-looking gentleman with pointed gray beard got +off an interurban car in the vicinity of Louisville, and stood gazing +about him uncertainly. It was not the suburban neighborhood he had +expected to find, but a distinctly rural one. Here and there smoke was +visible above the tree-tops, but the only house within sight was a small +farm-cottage of red brick, which had doubtless stood there among its +gnarled fruit-trees at a time when the turnpike that passed it was a +postroad leading from the metropolis of Middletown (now half a hundred +houses strung along the pike) to the little port of Louisville on the +Ohio. + +There was a big chimney at either end, in the picturesque but +impractical early fashion, and a bricked-up terrace across the front +overflowing with simple flowers: petunias, snapdragon, larkspur. Upon +the lawn grazed a rather stiff-kneed thoroughbred, apparently under +convoy of a pair of infants. One of these, the smaller, got about on all +fours with astonishing rapidity, and seemed imbued with the spirit of +investigation. The other, slightly larger, was extremely black as to +color and extremely capable as to manner. + +"Tek keer, you Steffum!" Mr. Nikolai heard this one admonish. "Don't you +go so near his mouf, you heah me? Dat hawss could snap you up jes' as +easy as nippin' off a dandelium!" + +The visitor leaned over the fence in sudden interest, "Can you tell me, +young person, whether Mrs. Blair lives here?" + +At sound of his voice the investigatory infant, in an excess of +hospitality, rose to its legs and teetered eagerly toward him, only to +come to earth at Mr. Nikolai's feet. Nothing daunted, however, it gazed +up at him from this lowly position with a mixture of Archie's grin and +the droll, blue, wistful twinkle of Joan. + +"Dar you goes, Steffum!" cried the guardian, in hot pursuit. "Dirtyin' +up anodder clean dress so's Miss Ellen gwinter whup me good--He's always +a-fallin' over on his face dataway," she complained, while maternally +repairing damages with the skirt of what appeared to be an only garment. +"I b'lieve he goes and does it a-purpose!" + +"To gain experience, perhaps?" suggested the visitor. + +"I reck'n," assented the other, doubtfully. "Yassuh, Mis' Blair she +_libs_ heah, but she's playin' on de type-writer dis mawnin'. Will I run +an' tell her comp'ny is came?" + +"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed the gentleman. "Not if she is playing on a +typewriter." + +"Mr. Archie, _he_ libs heah, too, when he ain't a trabelin' on de +railroad train," volunteered the black one, "He's out behine, makin' him +a little house to put a hawg in. Heah him?" + +Mr. Nikolai nodded. There was a good deal of intermittent hammering and +whistling going on in the background. + +"You need not announce me, thank you. Perhaps my namesake will lead me +to him?" + +He held out a forefinger to the younger Stefan, who examined it, found +it good, and clasped a trusting fist about it. So linked, the two moved +off at a pace suitable to experimental footsteps. + +In this slow progress they presently came upon a somewhat nondescript +figure at work in a potato-patch. It wore blue jeans overall trousers, +surmounted by what had once been a leghorn picture-hat, from which +straggled a lock or two of sparse gray hair. + +Mr. Nikolai stared at this figure for a puzzled moment; and then burst +out laughing. + +"Why, Ellen Neal! I did not recognize you as a farmerette." + +"Land sakes!" She sat down abruptly among the potato-plants, whether out +of surprise or for purposes of concealment it is impossible to state. + +But her welcome when it came was for once not grudging. Perhaps she +recalled a certain timely offer of help; or perhaps this graybeard, with +his slight, tired stoop and his lined eyes, no longer seemed to her a +menace to the sheepfold. Be that as it may, her greeting was not outdone +in warmth even by Archie's. + +"I've simply _got_ to tell Joan!" cried Archie. "She'll never forgive me +if I don't interrupt her just this once." + +"Not when it is coming like that," forbade Nikolai, listening to the +rapid click of a typewriter from the house beyond. "Neither battle, +murder, nor sudden death must be allowed to interfere with a flow of +thought that is coming a hundred words to the minute." + +"Well, I suppose you know," conceded the husband, reluctantly-- + +An hour later, however, Ellen took matters into her own hands. She +appeared at the kitchen door (dressed, Nikolai was flattered to observe, +in a costume of purple crêpe with Battenburg touches), and loudly rang a +dinner-bell. + +"That'll fetch her! Joan ain't ever too much up in the clouds to hear a +dinner-bell; and I don't mean to have my jelly-omelette kep' waitin' on +no flows of thought," she remarked. + +Joan came out to them, a little untidy as to dress and hair (why is it +that the Muse can never be pursued in perfect neatness?) and moving +vaguely, as if half in a dream. There was a faint vertical wrinkle +between her brows which was new to Nikolai, but her pallor had given +place to warm tan, and both face and figure showed a slight suggestion +of fullness, a little matronly poise that was more charming than her +Botticelli _maigre_ had been. + +As she passed her son, she swooped down upon him and lifted him with a +fine free swing onto her shoulder. + +"Hi there, old Dirt-in-the-Face! Where's your Dada?" + +Mother and child made a memorable picture as they approached, the long +lifting lines of the woman's body, her laughing face upturned to the +boy, who straddled her shoulder unafraid of his high position, chuckling +and kicking fat legs as she tickled him. + +The two men who loved Joan exchanged a sympathetic glance. "Mine!" said +each in his heart; the one triumphantly, the other with the little shrug +that was habitual to him. + +Not until she was close upon them did she realize who waited for her +there beside Archie. She stopped short. Then, without a word, she put +down her child and went to Nikolai and kissed him. + +If that kiss, so impulsive and without self-consciousness, was like a +stab in Nikolai's heart, he did not show it. She had not dared to kiss +him when they parted. + +There came back to him in that moment an echo of a certain prophesy he +had once made to Archie: "I must warn you that when she does find her +_metier_, you are more in danger of losing her to it than to me." + +Was she lost to both of them, already?... + +"Oh, but Stefan, dear, how tired you look!" ("And how old!" her thought +finished.) "You've been working too hard over there!" + +"One does. It seems the least one can do." + +"Too much work and not enough exercise," pronounced Archie, casting a +semi-professional eye over him. "Nothing ages a man so quick as to let +his muscles sag on him--but you brainy people always forget you've got +muscles except in your heads. I'll have to make you hoe the garden and +put on the gloves with me now and then, like I do Joan." + +"No wonder she is able to hoist fat sons about as if they were +feathers!" commented Nikolai. + +It was a happy luncheon they had together, and a garrulous one. The +Blair family talked all at once, including the youngest, who had three +words at his command and liked to practice them. Ellen also joined +freely in the conversation as she waited upon them. Nikolai was the only +quiet one, seeming content to look and listen. + +He had to hear all about the finding of the Farm, as Archie called his +two acres and a cottage. When the reunited Blairs had been looking about +for a place they could afford to live in--"And raise a family," added +Archie happily--they had come across the little place, weed-grown and +deserted, and rented it for almost nothing. + +"The chickens and the garden alone practically pay the rent," boasted +Archie, "and this summer I'm going to set up a hog. Real money in hogs, +Mr. Nikolai! Of course the house is pretty old-timey and plain,"--he +indicated the low ceilings and deep-set, many-paned windows--"but Joan +likes old-timey things. She says this is a country cousin to that old +place I used to live in on Poplar Street. Says a house without any +ghosts in it is as uninteresting as a house without any books in it." +(Archie was always fond of quoting the sayings of his Joan.) + +"You do not miss people?" Nikolai asked her, recalling how easily the +young American had made her place in what is perhaps the most finished +society in the world. + +"I have no chance to. We have neighbors enough--nice country women who +exchange patterns and recipes and cuttings with me, and even a book now +and then. If I want another sort, it is easy enough to run into town--or +even on to New York, now that I've the excuse of publishers to be seen! +And lately the town has begun to come out to me. Not at first. Emily and +the others had a good deal to say about the folly of burying oneself in +the country. You see this is not Country Club or golf-course country. +But now I notice that they're glad enough to come whenever I ask +them--or even when I don't!--Oh, the peace of it, Stefan! At night you +can positively hear the silence." + + "Amid the darkness that we feel is green," + +he said. + +She nodded. "And no formal callers to interrupt, and no ridiculous +competitions with Mrs. Websters--I think people are more themselves in +the country, somehow. Kentucky people, at any rate. Your Kentuckian does +not run quite true to type herded in masses." + +"Hear the wise authorine!" beamed Archie. + +"Perhaps that is true of all Anglo-Saxons," she went on, unheeding. +"They need to get their roots into the soil." + +"Not only of Anglo-Saxons, Joan--of Semitic people, of all people, I +think," said Nikolai. "Humanity began in a garden, if we may believe our +myths. And with all races the dream of the ultimate Paradise is a +garden." + +"Why don't you put some roots out yourself?" asked Archie, eagerly. +"There's a lot of good land about here for sale cheap. Why don't you buy +some and settle down near us?" + +"Oh, do!" urged Joan. "What a splendid idea!" + +He looked from one to the other, the slight flush that had risen to his +face dying away. + +"Thank you," he said quietly. "Thank you, my friends. Perhaps--some +day." + +Joan remembered that he had spoken once of his intention to settle down +near her and grow up with her children, "when he was old enough." + +Surely, she thought (quite unaware of any cruelty in her thought) he was +old enough now! + +Her eyes had been making their usual running commentary on the +conversation, quick blue flashes, grave or merry or reassuring, that +always spoke to Nikolai more clearly than her words. But presently he +noticed in them a return of the preoccupation, the vague dreaminess, +that had been about her when she first appeared. + +"Your mind is at that typewriter," he accused her suddenly. + +"Of course it is," complained Archie. "She'd be at the thing all day +long, if I didn't drag her out in the fields occasionally to work!" + +"Archie thinks writing is not work," she interpolated, "merely an +elegant way of passing a lady's leisure, like embroidery or +crocheting!--But I'm not always as bad as this, Stefan," she apologized. +"It's just that a crisis is on the way, and thoughts seem to come faster +than I can get them down.--Luckily for you I've got a public now to +spill them onto, instead of you!" + +"Do you find the public as responsive?" + +"_Does_ she!" cried the proud husband. "Letters in every mail, and +requests for autographs--why, she's a public character! The other day in +a street-car--Tell him what happened the other day in the street-car, +Joan." + +She pulled his hair, laughing. "Ain't I the most wonder-fullest +boy?--Well, the other day in a street-car, Stefan, a perfectly strange +man came up to me and said, 'Aren't you the Mrs. Blair who writes? Say, +what business have _you_ got knowing how scared a man is of his grown +son? You're only a girl.'" + +"I congratulate you," said Nikolai. "Yes, that is response. Taking the +world into your circle of intimates--that is the thing that makes the +game worth while for people like you and me." + +"Don't include me with yourself," she protested in quick deprecation. +"I'm not and never shall be 'literary.' Human nature is all I'm after, +Stefan. Villains who won't stay villains; heroes with fatal flaws of +character; good, fine, noble natures who spread havoc all about +'em--that's the sort of thing I want to do; never 'literature'!" + +He smiled, nodding. "Spoken like a true Cobzar!--But at that rate you'll +find it difficult to escape literature, my dear." He rose to leave, +against protests. "No, no, I have no intention of sharing honors with a +Climax. Let me come back to-morrow, when the crisis is out of her +system. I know how that is!" + +"You always know how things are," murmured Joan gratefully, pressing his +hand.... + +Archie walked with him to the car-station. + +"You think she's looking well, sir?" he asked as soon as they were out +of earshot. + +"Better than well, Blair. Content." + +The husband sighed with satisfaction. "I think so myself--though of +course it's the kid who's done that, not me--Mr. Nikolai, I've got to +talk to you on business. How big a hurry are you in for that money you +lent me?" + +"None at all," answered the other pleasantly. "I've accumulated a good +deal of moss for such a rolling-stone--a racial trait, perhaps! Take +your time. You've already paid me more than half, I think." + +"Joan's book did most of that, not me," admitted Archie, flushing. +"Though of course I'm going to pay her back." + +"Don't," said the other. + +"_Don't!_ Why not?" + +"Our only hold upon such as Joan is--our need of them." + +Archie ruminated upon this in silence. "I get you," he said at last. +"Let 'em think we're sort of helpless, like--like children, eh? But it's +pretty hard accepting money from a woman!" + +"Why? When we have consented to accept life itself from a woman--Where +there is love there is no debt, Blair!" + +"I guess that's right," said Archie slowly. "What's mine is hers of +course; and so what's hers is mine--But speaking of the war--" + +It happened that they had not been speaking of the war at all, though it +hung in the background of their talk, grim and menacing, as it hung in +the background of all talk just then. + +"Yes, Blair?" + +"We're getting into it at last, thank God! And as soon as we do, I'm +going." + +"Of course," said Nikolai. + +Archie turned to him eagerly. "You think I've got a right to go?" + +"So much of a right that I've come out here largely to see how I can +help you--Of course you know," he added after a moment's hesitation, +"that anything I have will go some day to my namesake Stefan?" + +"Say, that's great!" cried Archie, beaming. "That makes me mighty easy +about the future! And the present's all right, too. I'm pretty sure of +getting a commission, and Joan makes more money than I do now. The thing +that's been troubling me is wondering how _you'd_ ever get paid back.... +I'm pretty tall for the trenches," he explained. "And I seem to get sort +of careless when I'm excited--the Irish coming out on me, I reckon. The +chances are against my coming back. And in that case all you'd get would +be--Joan." + +A silence fell. + +"And the kid, of course--He's a pretty nice little fellow," Archie added +tentatively. "I don't suppose he'd be much of a--drawback?" + +"On the contrary," said Nikolai. "I think he might be considered +interest on the investment!" + +Archie laughed with relief. + +"I tell you, it makes me feel pretty comfortable to know that whatever +happens to me they'll be safe! And to know that you'll be taking care of +her, sir. She needs a good deal of taking care of, too--though she don't +know it. Thinks she's as independent as a little pig on ice. But they're +none of 'em independent, Mr. Nikolai--take it from me! They've got to be +humored, and teased, and exercised, and petted--and the smarter they are +the more petting they need. This high-brow business seems to leave +people sort of lonesome in their hearts--you know what I mean?" + +"Yes," said Nikolai, "I know what you mean--I shall accept your legacy +gladly, Blair, if I am here to accept it. But--I am going to the war, +myself. Not into the trenches, no. Into Russia." + +Archie protested as Joan had. "But I thought Russia was not safe for +you!" + +"It is not. Nor for anybody else just now. There is something brewing +there. You will see. And I think perhaps I can do a little something for +both my countries, the new and the old. That is why I have come to +America; to arrange my affairs, and to--say good-by." + +"I get you," said Archie, simply, and held out his hand. His face had +fallen. "Gee, supposing neither of us comes back? What will she do +then?" + +Nikolai gravely smiled. "Listen!" he said. + +Through the hush of the still afternoon came to their ears, faint but +distinct, the steady clicking of a typewriter. + +"That is what she will do, my friend, with us or without. She has +graduated from you and me--from herself as well. She has turned from men +to Man; and of him the supply is inexhaustible." + +Archie sighed, a little jealously. "You gave her that! You've given her +almost everything she values, sir, haven't you?" + +"Not quite everything, Blair." + +Archie's eyes brightened. He remembered then the thing the other had not +given her: their boy. + + * * * * * + +It was a scene that etched itself upon Nikolai's memory as he stood +there waiting for his car, one of those pictures the heart carries with +it into far places, and forever; the pleasant, homely cottage among its +flowers and gnarled apple-trees, children's voices prattling about, the +smell of cooking pickle in the air, Archie's cheery, retreating whistle, +and dominating all the eager clicking of a typewriter. + +His eyes followed the broad shoulders of the younger man, swinging along +the road to the brisk, martial tread all young men have learned +latterly.... Nikolai's life had thrown him into contact with all phases +of the human problem, low and high. He knew how inextricably the two are +mingled. Heroism, self-sacrifice, he had found in the most unlikely +places, and thrilled to them as a fighting nature thrills to the drum. +It hurt him to realize that the finest heroism, the most exquisite +sacrifice, must always be hidden things, hidden often even from the eyes +of him who sacrifices. Archibald Blair, failure in all that the world +finds important, would have called himself undoubtedly a poor stick. +Only to the occasional eye did he loom a hero. + +Nikolai looked after him sadly, listening to the steady click of that +typewriter. At last he quoted to himself, with a shrug, + + "Meurs, parce que j'ai besoin de chanter la mort pour mes chansons."[1] + +Between them, he knew, they would manage to serve Joan's needs to the +end. + + +THE END + +[Footnote: 1 "Die, for I have need to sing of death in my songs."] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Why Joan?, by Eleanor Mercein Kelly + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHY JOAN? *** + +***** This file should be named 34801-8.txt or 34801-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/8/0/34801/ + +Produced by David Garcia, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Why Joan? + +Author: Eleanor Mercein Kelly + +Release Date: December 31, 2010 [EBook #34801] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHY JOAN? *** + + + + +Produced by David Garcia, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<h1>WHY JOAN?</h1> + +<h2>BY ELEANOR MERCEIN KELLY</h2> + +<h3>Author of "<span class="smcap">Kildares of Storm</span>," etc.</h3> + + +<h3>NEW YORK<br /> +THE CENTURY CO.<br /> +1919</h3> + +<h3>Copyright, 1919, by<br /> +<span class="smcap">The Century Co.</span></h3> + +<h3><i>Published, March, 1919</i></h3> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>TO<br /> +MRS. RICHARD W. KNOTT<br /> +friend and neighbor to many young<br /> +women such as JOAN, whom she<br /> +has helped to find the why of themselves;<br /> +and whose life principle may<br /> +be summed up in Virgil's phrase<br /> +<i>Paulo majora canamus</i>—<br /> +(Let us sing of higher things.)</h3> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Aime-moi, parce que j'ai besoin de ton amour pour mes chansons,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Va t'en, parce que j'ai besoin de pleurer pour mes chansons,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Meurs, parce que j'ai besoin de chanter la mort pour mes chansons,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Car je suis le Cobzar.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>Quoted by Pierre de Coulevain from source unknown.</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Rough translation:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Love me, because I have need of love for my songs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Leave me, because I have need of tears for my songs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Die, for I have need to sing of death in my songs,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">For I am the Cobzar.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/front.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="FOREWORD" id="FOREWORD"></a>FOREWORD</h2> + + +<p>Some time since, the author had the temerity innocently to publish a +book ("Kildares of Storm"), which, like this one, employed for +background the country with which she happens to be most familiar, the +State of her adoption and of her affections. And great was the scandal +thereof. Neighbors insisted upon recognising themselves in it, to their +horror—or to their complacency, as the case might be. They also +recognized the house described; although if one heard with impartial +ear, the house appeared to possess as many different identities as +localities, and despite the fact that the author, in order to guard +against this very contingency, had taken many liberties with geography, +even to the extent of moving mountains—imagination being on occasion +almost as powerful as faith.</p> + +<p>That history may not repeat itself, the author now hastens to assert +that no self-respecting creative instinct, with the whole world of fancy +at command, would care to inhibit productivity by the limitations +imposed upon photography, invaluable as that science is in its +place—which is not fiction. Ours the happy privilege of, for the moment +at least, "shattering the world to bits and remolding it nearer to the +heart's desire."</p> + +<p>There is also among the craft an unwritten law against the holding up +for public inspection those people with whom one has broken bread, so to +speak; and as one is apt, in Kentucky, to have broken bread with all +one's acquaintance, neighbors, friends and enemies may alike consider +themselves safe from the present pen. If any think to recognize +themselves in this book, let them recognize themselves quite as readily +in the living people about them. For we are, after all, of one +substance, varying only with circumstance and the different stages of +development. And it is with these things only—with circumstance and the +stages of development, with truths rather than facts, with men and women +rather than personalities—that this author at least chooses to concern +herself.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Eleanor Mercein Kelly.</span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#FOREWORD">FOREWORD</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">CHAPTER XXXI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">CHAPTER XXXII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">CHAPTER XXXIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">CHAPTER XXXIV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">CHAPTER XXXV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI">CHAPTER XXXVI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII">CHAPTER XXXVII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII">CHAPTER XXXVIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX">CHAPTER XXXIX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XL">CHAPTER XL</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XLI">CHAPTER XLI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XLII">CHAPTER XLII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XLIII">CHAPTER XLIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XLIV">CHAPTER XLIV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XLV">CHAPTER XLV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XLVI">CHAPTER XLVI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XLVII">CHAPTER XLVII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XLVIII">CHAPTER XLVIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XLIX">CHAPTER XLIX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_L">CHAPTER L</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_LI">CHAPTER LI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_LII">CHAPTER LII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_LIII">CHAPTER LIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_LIV">CHAPTER LIV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_LV">CHAPTER LV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_LVI">CHAPTER LVI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_LVII">CHAPTER LVII</a><br /> +<a href="#TWO_YEARS_LATER">TWO YEARS LATER</a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>WHY JOAN?</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + + +<p>Young Joan Darcy leaned back luxuriously upon a cushion offered by the +obsequious porter (servants were usually obsequious with Joan, though +she was not at all beautiful and rather too shabby to promise much in +the way of largesse), watching the world go by with a dreamy, detached, +yet oddly observant gaze that missed no detail of the landscape through +which she passed and registered it in her subconscious mind for future +reference. It was a convenient receptacle, her subconscious mind—a sort +of strongbox into which went many things valuable and valueless, to be +brought forth when occasion required, quite intact. She tucked away in +it now not only the rushing landscape but the various people about her +in the Pullman: a dapper person, probably a necktie drummer, who had for +some time been discreetly taking notice and whom it was her pleasure to +occasionally regard as if he were so much thin air; an elderly lady who +beamed wistfully whenever their eyes met, and who, Joan decided, would +presently summon up courage to inform her that a little daughter, had +she lived, would have been about Joan's age; also another girl, dressed +as Joan would have liked to be dressed herself, who cast occasional +glances of indifference in her direction, noting, it was to be hoped, +the affluent litter of magazines and papers that surrounded our heroine, +the fading bouquet tucked into her belt, and the expensive box of +chocolates which lay open upon her knee, exposing to the world at large +a masculine card on top.</p> + +<p>Joan discovered within herself a certain impersonal, appreciative +antagonism toward strange young women, such as knights may have felt who +met for combat upon the jousting field. Envy was the one tribute which +most assuaged her vanity.</p> + +<p>She would have liked to sample the box of candy—a parting tribute from +a family friend who had a most discriminating taste in chocolates—but +she feared that it would place her hopelessly in the class of +school-girls, from which she had just emerged, as world-wise, as +sophisticated, as completely finished a young person as ever a convent +turned loose upon the unsuspecting world. "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" +was her favorite novel; she had smoked her maiden cigarette—in fact, +two of them; and she no longer subscribed to the stork-and-baby myth, +which seemed to her puerile.</p> + +<p>She was still able, however, to savor keenly in advance the moment when +the Pullman would empty itself into the dining-car and she would be free +to approach her chocolates in the manner favored by true <i>bon vivants</i>: +i.e., by nibbling off one end, extracting the contents bit by creamy bit +with the head of a pin (preferably a large white-topped pin), and +finally crushing the emptied shell deliciously upon the tongue. +Conserved in this manner, one chocolate might be made to do the duty of +many chocolates, an advantage not to be despised where pocket-money is +limited to twenty-five cents a week.</p> + +<p>The moment was not yet, and reflecting sedately that self-control is +good exercise for the character, she gave herself over to the pleasures +of recollection.</p> + +<p>What a beautiful parting it had been! What floods of tears and kisses +and promises! Seven—no, eight—girls weeping around her while they +exchanged dramatic farewells; firm Sister Mary Joseph, the out-sister +who conveyed pupils to shops and trains and so forth, leading her aside +at the last moment to press upon her, heretic though she was, a tiny +medal of St. Joseph, known to bring good husbands to his adherents; two +youths from the near-by college (mere brothers of friends, but still +masculine); and, for <i>pièce de résistance</i>, Stefan Nikolai, famous +though elderly, who had run over from China or Egypt or somewhere to see +her graduate. This was an attention Joan took quite for granted—he had +been a friend of her mother's, and distance seemed nothing to his habit +of life. But its effect upon her schoolmates, and even upon Sister Mary +Joseph, was gratifying in the extreme. With his dark, fine features, and +his foreign-cut clothes, he had not looked particularly elderly that +day. His eyes, Joan recalled, had always been peculiarly expressive, +like the eyes of a setter dog, which probably has nothing to express at +all; and she chuckled to recall how the out-sister's gaze had wandered +inadvertently toward the unconscious gentleman as she tendered her medal +of St. Joseph.</p> + +<p>Joan was fond of Mr. Nikolai, and grateful to him. She even read his +books, though she preferred his letters, which had a good deal in them +about herself. His presence at her graduation, his chocolates, the +little sea of papers with which he sought to beguile the tedium of her +journey, had all helped to comfort her for the absence of her father. He +was, she thought warmly, almost as good as a father anyway; and far more +generous! Everything nice she had was a gift from Stefan Nikolai. Her +lovely Chinese shawl, her carved jade ring (Joan wished secretly that +there had been a diamond in it somewhere), the odd piece of clear blue +aquamarine he had brought her for a graduation present, that just +matched her eyes; books too, in beautiful covers, and some old prints +that were anything but beautiful, and a white bear-skin for her room. +She would have liked to suggest to him that, in place of such costly +trifles, occasional dresses might be acceptable, of the sort that come +from Paris; also frilly things, hand-embroidered, which he would not +have to choose himself, of course—there being women clerks for the +purpose. She was a little surprised that he had not thought of it +himself, aware as he must be of the scarcity of such desirables in the +Darcy family.</p> + +<p>Still, one must not look a gift-horse in the mouth; and had he not been +such a lifelong friend as to be almost a relation, Joan would have +chafed a little, as it was, under her sense of obligation to Mr. +Nikolai. Her mother's daughter did not take kindly to a sense of +obligation.</p> + +<p>It was not he, however (ah, by no means he!) who had provided the +flowers which drooped at her belt. For one moment the absence of the +donor of these flowers had threatened to spoil the pleasure of her +parting; and then had arrived, breathless, a messenger and a note. Joan +was able philosophically to reflect that if the gentleman had come in +person she would never have had the note. And there is something +delightfully tangible and lasting about a love-letter—if, indeed, it +was a love-letter?</p> + +<p>That was one of Eduard Desmond's great gifts: elusiveness.</p> + +<p>She put her hand to her blouse and felt the responsive crackle therein; +and the words of the note danced before her eyes in the form of little +cupids, bearing garlands:</p> + +<blockquote><p>My flowers must tell you what I dare not, dearest little girl +of my heart. You will understand why I cannot say good-by. +Truly, "To part is to die a little." Forgive me! <span class="smcap">Eduard.</span></p></blockquote> + +<p>Joan had done her thrilled best to understand, since it was expected of +her, but she felt rather puzzled. Was it that he feared his emotions at +parting might get beyond his control? Joan sighed. She could have borne +that. Or was it—here she frowned importantly—that his habits were +already resuming control of him, now that her hand was, so to speak, off +the rudder?</p> + +<p>Eduard Desmond, as all the Convent knew, was a man of the world, with a +past. He was also in his lighter moments an artist. The Convent was +rather vague in its mind as to the form of art he pursued; but that it +included habits was unfortunately certain, and his young niece Betty had +vouched personally for the authenticity of his past. It had had to do +with a married woman. The Convent frequently prayed for him; though +unknown to the nuns.</p> + +<p>Occasionally this distinguished-looking, fascinating, rather melancholy +young man came to take Betty and a few chosen friends to a matinée, out +of the kindness of his heart. Perhaps it was not pure kindness of heart +that had called to his special attention young Joan Darcy, with her +square chin, and straight black brows beneath which the eyes looked out +at you with an odd intensity; unless she smiled, when they danced like +blue water in the sun. She was not pretty, Joan, and boys rarely noticed +her, somewhat to her chagrin; but Eduard Desmond was no boy, and his +past perhaps had made him perceptive. The acquaintance between them +ripened to a degree unsuspected by the good sisters at the Convent, if +not by his family, who aided and abetted it, feeling that a young girl +might be rather good for Eduard. Doubtless she was. She entered into the +duty of "reforming" him with a conscientious thoroughness that might +have been trying to an artistic temperament, had he not got a good deal +of genuine interest out of the process himself; interest, and even more. +She had soft little confiding ways, like a friendly child's, combined +with the queerest flashes of cool understanding, anything but childlike, +which kept him rather in awe of her innocent vision. Indeed, that the +affair went no further than it did was due perhaps to Joan's perfectly +unconscious habit of withdrawing herself to see what was going on, of +being "not there when wanted," as Eduard put it to himself, annoyed. He +thought it deliberate, the reserve of the prude, or of the embryo +coquette; whereas it was really one of the crosses of Joan's life, +dreaded by her as the self-conscious dread attacks of shyness.</p> + +<p>So far she had come out of what might have been an illuminating +experience bearing only two small trophies of the sort girls love to +whisper about together in bed after dances when the lights are out; one +rather lingering kiss upon her slim, brown paw (which did not startle +her at all, but made her want to giggle); and now this love-letter—if +it was a love-letter.</p> + +<p>Again Joan sighed. She regretted with all her heart that queer aloofness +which came upon her in critical moments, making her notice that a man's +ears were put on wrong, or that her own finger-nails needed shining, +when she should have been surrendering her whole soul to emotion. Was it +always going to keep her from plumbing the depths of life?</p> + +<p>"Oh, but it shan't!" she insisted to herself. "I <i>will not</i> be an +innocent bystander! Things must happen to me; they must. All kinds of +things!"</p> + +<p>It was the sort of challenge to which Fate is apt to give attentive ear.</p> + +<p>Presently, out of facts and recollections she slipped, as was her wont, +into a game of Pretend, which had been a sort of accompaniment to Joan +from her cradle; growing as she grew, changing as life changed its +aspect to her eyes. She was no longer plain little Joan Darcy, returning +from school in a shabby suit which she had outgrown, to a shabby home +which she had also somewhat outgrown. She was a glorified young person +of the singer or actress variety, returning from a career of conquest in +foreign parts, with her maid Fifine traveling second class in the coach +behind, as they do in all the better novels. Her father, not much +altered from real life except that there were no spots on his clothes +(the Major's manner being grand enough for any circumstances), would be +at the station with the victoria and pair—or perhaps the limousine—and +would murmur to the second footman, "Home, James"; and at the door of +the family mansion, a pillared, fan-lighted door (Joan's mind lingered +lovingly over architectural details even in her haste to reach the +people in the doorway) would be Ellen Neal first, dropping respectful +curtsies—quite a stretch, this, even for Joan's imagination!—and +beyond her, in a lovely tea-gown, all silk and lace and newness, would +stand her mother with outstretched arms, waiting....</p> + +<p>Here Joan became suddenly aware that she was dropping large, hot tears +upon her precious chocolates—she who had sworn never, never to cry any +more in all her life, because tears are only useless things that make +the nose red!</p> + +<p>"But <i>why</i> am I crying?" she demanded of herself, puzzled, still mazed +with her game of Pretend.</p> + +<p>It was because her mother would not be in that doorway, waiting; nor +anywhere ever again—unless there really is a Heaven.</p> + +<p>Joan sat there, too proud to bury her face in her hands or to search for +a handkerchief, intensely conscious that people were glancing her way, +praying wildly to all her gods to keep her from blubbering aloud; and +she looked so like a haughty infant in distress that the young man +opposite, he whom she had characterized as a necktie drummer, could not +long restrain active sympathy.</p> + +<p>"Pardon <i>me</i>," he said awkwardly, leaning toward her. "Are you in some +sort of trouble? Anything I can do?"</p> + +<p>Joan summoned all her scattered forces to meet this emergency in a +manner that would do credit to the precepts of Sister Mary Joseph. She +elevated her small red nose, and lifting her eyes to about the level of +his scarf-pin (a rather cheap scarf-pin) remarked: "You can go away. I +am telling myself sad stories of the death of kings."</p> + +<p>The necktie drummer retired, permanently, to the smoking-car.</p> + +<p>This victory cheered Joan into momentarily forgetting her mother. +Already an adventure to write to the girls! She wished that she had +looked a little farther up than the scarf-pin.</p> + +<p>Shortly the old lady whose daughter might have been Joan's age if she +had lived, invited Joan to be her guest in the dining-car, and was +repulsed, coldly and firmly. One hears such tales of wicked old harpies +on trains leading trustful girls into the most frightful predicaments!</p> + +<p>"No, thank you," said our heroine. "I never have much appetite on +trains."</p> + +<p>Soon the car was quite empty, and Joan, mopping the last of the tears +from her eyes, selected the largest of the chocolates and drew from some +recess of her person a white-headed pin. There was also, to be discussed +later, a packet of sandwiches, typical Convent affairs—large slabs of +bread embracing pale and clammy ham. Joan thought of these with +resignation. The odor of broiling beefsteak came back from the car ahead +rather poignantly. Joan had lied to the old lady. At eighteen, with +every nerve and organ in healthy coöperation, appetite is not likely to +fail, on trains or elsewhere. Nor was it as if she did not have the +necessary dollar in her pocket. Major Darcy always managed to rise to +the occasion somehow when the ladies of his family went traveling. He +had a horror of gentlewomen finding themselves among strangers +temporarily embarrassed for funds—quite a different affair from a +permanent condition of the sort when in the home circle.</p> + +<p>She knew that it was expected of her to spend her dollar in riotous +living; but she could not forget (the Joans of the world never can +forget) that a dollar is the price of a pair of white gloves or a pair +of silk stockings. And so she munched her sacrificial sandwiches with a +considering eye on the future.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + + +<p>Later, as she lay propped up in her snug little berth (far the +pleasantest part of the journey to Joan), with her shade up for fear of +missing anything of the mysterious night that passed outside—strange, +silent cities, isolated farms asleep in the starlight, the glow of +smelting fires as they flashed by, like a startling glimpse into the +infernal regions—it suddenly occurred to Joan that her father had been +unprecedentedly lavish in his provision for her journey home.</p> + +<p>"Money for good-by presents to all the girls; money for ticket, and +sleeper, and tips, and ten dollars besides—goodness! Dad must have +struck something!" she mused, deciding that it was really business that +kept him from coming to see her graduate, and not, to put it delicately, +the lack of business.</p> + +<p>In the Darcy family things were always put delicately. The mention of +cost was deprecated. One never said crudely that a thing could not be +afforded. One "preferred not to bother about it just then," or one +"liked last year's hat so much better than any in the shops," or one +"enjoyed the freedom of being without servants for a while—it was a +relief."</p> + +<p>Occasionally Joan's mother, before she overcame the blunter speech of +the North, had offended the family taste with plain statements about +prices and possibilities. Joan, observant from her cradle, drew her own +conclusions from the expression of wincing deprecation these faux pas +produced upon her father's face, or upon that of the cousin or aunt or +what-not in the way of Darcy relation that was usually visiting them.</p> + +<p>"Mamma," she had asked once in the murmured intimacy that preceded +sleepy time, "isn't money a very nice fing?"</p> + +<p>"A very nice thing indeed, babykins," answered the lady with a faint +sigh.</p> + +<p>"Then why mustn't us never speak about it?"</p> + +<p>It was not the only one of her daughter's questions that the harassed +woman had been obliged to parry with what skill lay at her command. +Honesty always came more easily to Mary Darcy than subterfuge.</p> + +<p>Joan grew up into the family habit of euphonious speech; but, thanks to +a certain inheritance from her mother, facts had a way of presenting +themselves to her inner vision with a clarity, a brutal frankness of +outline, quite unprecedented in the mind of a Darcy.</p> + +<p>Her facility in the valuable game of Pretend came from the paternal +strain. Richard Darcy was one of those fortunate spirits who move +through life to the sound of an invisible drum corps—a procession of +one, affably ready for whatever honors Fate chose to thrust upon him. +Joan, too, was quite prepared for the best the world had to offer. +Nevertheless, unlike her father, she was never unaware of the difference +between pretense and reality, nor of the fixed line dividing them. When +she lied, it was deliberately, with her eyes wide open.</p> + +<p>Just now she chose to step over the dividing line firmly into reality. +Perhaps her dinner may have had something to do with it; a diet of +chocolates and ham sandwiches not being conducive to glamour of thought, +even at eighteen.</p> + +<p>Joan wished, soberly, that she were happier at the idea of going home. +She wished that she were not haunted by a vague dread of it....</p> + +<p>The Convent—with its daily round of prescribed duties and pleasures, +its fixed intimates and enemies, its atmosphere of simple piety, its +guardian nuns, striving conscientiously for that "detachment from place" +which is enjoined upon them, but lavishing all the pent-up +mother-passion of their hearts upon the young creatures in their +care—Joan, young as she was, visualized the place she had left as a +sunny haven, a little quiet eddy in the whirlpool; sheltered, secluded, +safe.</p> + +<p>She frowned at the adjective. Surely her own home was "safe," too! +Surely the vague dread she felt had nothing to do with her father, for +instance—her own dear, splendid Dad, so handsome despite his frayed and +spotted clothes, with the courtly manner that had won both nuns and +girls to awestruck admiration, and that gave him far more distinction +than the fathers of other girls who did not wear frayed and spotted +clothes. No, it could not be her father she dreaded!</p> + +<p>And it was certainly not Ellen Neal, the elderly woman who had followed +the Darcy fortunes in their waxing and waning for many a year—part +servant, part mentor, always friend; declining to be shaken off even in +those crises when Mrs. Darcy "enjoyed doing without servants"; +supporting herself during such financial depressions by means of a +skilful needle—supporting, Joan sometimes suspected, others than +herself. The girl recalled one significant incident of her early +childhood; her mother, pale and anxious, arguing at the door with a rude +man who declined to leave without something she seemed unable to give +him, until Ellen appeared, half running up the street, opening her +shopping-bag as she came. And when she had thrust something into the +rude man's hands and slammed the door in his face, Mrs. Darcy had turned +silently to the servant and kissed her.</p> + +<p>Joan's feeling for Ellen was one of the few she had never tried to +analyze. It was simply there, like her breath, her eyesight. She could +not be said to love her—there was nothing attractive about Ellen Neal; +yet her only quarrel with her father (if anything so one-sided could be +called a quarrel) was on the subject of Ellen. Once during Joan's +previous summer vacation, the Major, who disliked familiarity in +servants, had taken occasion to remind Ellen most kindly that his +daughter was almost a young lady now and should be spoken to as Miss +Joan, no longer as "Joie" or as "Baby." Joan had thoroughly concurred in +this opinion; until, happening to glance at Ellen as she left the room, +she saw that the servant's compressed lips were trembling. She had cried +out unaccountably: "No such thing, Nellen! You're to call me anything +you like, always!"—and then she had turned upon her father, scolding, +stammering out astonishing reminders, raising her voice, altogether +behaving in a manner most unbecoming a gentlewoman and a Darcy—as her +father quite obviously forebore to suggest to her. The quarrel had been +altogether a most unsatisfactory one. During her tirade the Major had +sat with poised carving-knife, regarding his daughter under mildly +raised eyebrows. When she had stormed herself out, he remarked quietly, +in quotation marks:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Her voice was ever soft and low,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An excellent thing in woman."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But the matter of "Miss Joan" was, by tacit consent, never resumed +between them.</p> + +<p>No, it was decidedly not Ellen Neal who was responsible for her vague +dread of home-coming. The girl, who had an odd dislike of anything vague +in her mental processes, pursued the fugitive sensation to its lair with +relentless precision.</p> + +<p>Was it the poverty of home she feared, then? Surely not, for poverty was +a condition quite as much with her elsewhere—rather more with her +elsewhere, for among strangers it was impossible to practice those +useful little economies of ragged underwear and worn-out shoes which in +the privacy of home-life made an occasional extravagance possible. Joan +rather looked forward to the time when she no longer need be on +dress-parade, so to speak, at every hour of the day.</p> + +<p>"If I wear cheap nightgowns, I can buy myself a good hat," was her +thought—a thought which may be said to sum up the philosophy of the +Darcy family.</p> + +<p>And although it seems customary among novelists to gage the refinement +of their heroines by the daintiness of their taste in underlinen—no +matter if her outer wear be sackcloth and ashes, the lingerie of a true +fiction lady is invariably above reproach—one would like to submit that +an almost equal refinement may be indicated by the present heroine's +determination to make as brave a showing as possible before her world +with as little strain as possible upon her father's income....</p> + +<p>Was it her mother's absence she feared then—still? Forewarned, Joan +resolutely kept back the nervous tears that threatened to rise again at +the thought of her mother; and she faced the possibility calmly.</p> + +<p>During the summer before, alone with her father and Ellen, Joan had been +given plenty of time to get used to her mother's absence. Indeed, it +seemed to her suddenly that during the several years previous she had +been given time to get used to her mother's absence. It was as if Mary +Darcy, knowing that the hand of death was upon her, had deliberately, +gradually, withdrawn herself from the child she loved, in order to make +the final separation easier.</p> + +<p>"That would have been like Mother," said Joan, nodding.</p> + +<p>She understood, in that moment of clear vision, why she had been sent +away to boarding-school, despite her father's amazed protests—it was +unprecedented that Mrs. Darcy should remain so firm in the matter of +incurring unnecessary expense. She understood, too, why the narrow, +bleak house in Louisville, which was the latest of their many homes, had +taken on none of the look of her mother—that intimate, friendly, +stay-awhile air which Mary Darcy, with the aid of long practice, managed +to produce among the most unlikely surroundings within a few hours of +occupancy. True, the old furniture made its faithful reappearance there, +part of Joan's earliest recollections—the parlor suite of rosewood with +blue velour, the little cottage piano, the great bed in which she, and +her mother, and her mother's mother had been born, shorn long ago of its +tester to accommodate altered circumstances—all looking a trifle +shabbier, a trifle more battered after each adventure with fortune, but +still dignified and "good," with the unmistakable mien of gentlefolk in +reduced circumstances. For once, however, Mary Darcy had not been able +to accomplish her usual miracle with this furniture. Chairs, sofa, +tables, stood stiffly wherever the moving-men had chosen to place them, +making no attempts to hide the spots on the wall-paper; the thread-bare +velvet portières which had separated parlor from hall in every home that +Joan remembered had never been altered to fit this one; stranger still, +there were no green growing things in the window-sills, nor even in the +can-strewn, sooty backyard. Joan could not recall any other home she had +lived in without some attempt at a garden, were it only a few geraniums +in the window-box.</p> + +<p>"Mamma must have been very tired," she thought, soberly; and realized +that, far from dreading her mother's absence in that dingy, dreary +house, she was almost glad of it. When one is as tired as Mrs. Darcy, +rest is the great boon—rest from hopeless hoping, rest from making +homes out of patience and courage and a few old sticks of furniture, +rest from the anxious sorrow of loving.</p> + +<p>Joan was young to understand such things; but at her birth the fairies +had given her the cruel gift of seeing out of the eyes of others....</p> + +<p>She came to the conclusion at last the thing she had been dreading was +simply responsibility. Her play-time was over. No stretch of imagination +could make her a little girl again—not with her hair well up on her +head and a love-letter crackling deliciously under her pillow! Hereafter +it was hers to create the home her mother had relinquished; hers to make +ends meet somehow, if only in the accepted Irish way of "cutting a piece +off one end and tying it onto the other"; hers to keep out of her +father's eyes a certain baffled, hunted look which Joan associated with +men who came to collect bills, referred to grimly by Ellen as "the +Indians." No family of pioneers on the long-ago western frontier ever +lived in greater fear of Indians than did Richard and Mary Darcy and +their child Joan.</p> + +<p>The girl sighed, bracing her slight shoulders. But still thinking of her +mother, she rehearsed sleepily one tenet of the little creed she had +made long since to fit her necessities:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"It does not pay to be too unselfish."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + + +<p>Friends of Mary Darcy, in the distant days before they forgot to discuss +her surprising marriage with a promoter from who knows where, were wont +to say, "At least he makes a devoted husband and father!"</p> + +<p>Which was perfectly true. His little family had always been, as he often +said, a passion with Richard Darcy. Perhaps his facility in saying +things of the sort was what had appealed in the first place to the shy, +undemonstrative Northernness of Mary. Though he was one of several who +had professed their willingness to live for her, he was the only suitor +who had offered to die for her—an attention she could not but +appreciate.</p> + +<p>It was entirely for his child's sake (and, indeed, at some personal risk +to himself, had Mary but suspected it) that two years before Major Darcy +had so arranged the mysterious affairs he called Business as to be able +to return to the State and city of his illustrious birth; "where," he +explained with proud humility, "we are not quite nobodies, my darling!"</p> + +<p>(The "who knows where" on the part of Mary's friends had been sheer +arrogant affectation; for nobody could have talked with Richard Darcy +for five minutes without learning that he had been born and raised and +hoped to die in the great Commonwealth of Kentucky.)</p> + +<p>Joan had been quite as eager about the prospective move as her father, +marveling at the apathy of her mother, who said, "I never mind being +'nobodies,' Richard, so long as we have each other."</p> + +<p>Romantic visions danced through the girl's head of stately pillared +mansions, of faithful negro servitors, of fascinating belles and +gallants on horseback (her mental language became quite stilted and ante +bellum to suit the picture), riding to hounds through meadows as blue as +the skies above.</p> + +<p>"Though I don't suppose there's much bluegrass right around Louisville, +is there, Daddy?" she demanded, with the passion for truth that was in +her.</p> + +<p>"Plenty of it, Dollykins, plenty of it—though of course Louisville is +not really in the bluegrass region, you remember. It belongs to the +beargrass district." (Joan nodded. Thanks to her father's powers of +reminiscence, she was well up on her Kentucky.) "Still, it isn't like +one of these soulless Northern cities, which regard land as so much +waste space on which to build monstrosities!" He glanced out truculently +upon the streets of Chicago, which had managed in some way to incur the +Major's displeasure. "No, no, there's plenty of bluegrass about the old +town still, plenty of space, plenty of room to breathe. And how my old +friends will take you to their hearts and love you! None of this +blighting Northern indifference to everything except the chink of money. +Money—<i>bah!</i>—It is God's country down there, my child—gentleman's +country."</p> + +<p>This was not anti-climax on the Major's part. He visualized God at His +best as a superior sort of Christian gentleman, who, had America been +discovered at the time, would doubtless have chosen the Southern portion +of it for the scene of His nativity.</p> + +<p>Of course the girl's anticipations of "God's country" were too glowing +not to foredoom her to disappointment. The bluegrass itself was a flat +failure; mere meadows of ordinary green, above which hung in seedtime a +purplish tinge, like smoke from burning leaves. Louisville, too, did not +quite meet the rosy expectations of a young person rather experienced in +cities.</p> + +<p>They were received at the station, not by a deputation of the old +friends who were to take them to their hearts and love them, but merely +by a cousin, one of three Misses Darcy who had paid lengthy southern +visits to the various places Joan had hitherto called home. By this lady +they were conducted volubly in street-cars (Joan had hoped for a +long-tailed carriage-pair) to an ancestral mansion which had loomed +large in the Major's reminiscences, but which, as he himself admitted, +appeared to have shrunk strangely, after the way of houses one has known +in early youth. It was one of a row of duplicate tall marble fronts, +stained and yellowed, unpleasantly suggestive to Joan's too-vivid +imagination of neglected front teeth.</p> + +<p>From this shelter the Darcys soon departed. The cousins, while most +cordial, were under the necessity of letting their spare chambers to +paying guests, under which category their Cousin Richard could not with +any certainty be classed.</p> + +<p>Joan recalled vividly the family search for a house that suited both her +father's taste and her mother's pocket-book. The streets had seemed to +her gray, endless cañons, from whose pavements the heat arose and eddied +in dizzying waves. From within dark doorways women in dressing-sacks, +waving palm-leaf fans, gazed out at them languidly. Block after block +they traversed of houses that seemed as afraid of differing from each +other as men in evening dress; again they came to neighborhoods where +each dwelling stood at a bias angle from the street, as if hoping to +achieve an impossible privacy by turning a cold shoulder upon its +neighbor. And everywhere they huddled together as close as possible, +presenting a solid front of masonry to repel invasion. Where was the +space her father had boasted, the room to breathe?</p> + +<p>Joan had gazed longingly down certain vistas of tree-lined avenues, +lined with pleasant mansions; or into compact green courts where there +were smaller homes, with gardens. But these the elders passed without +inquiry. They were as quick as house-agents at guessing rents.</p> + +<p>At last an abode was found that seemed to the Major suitable upon all +counts. Mrs. Darcy, gazing up at its tall, narrow brick front, said with +a slight sigh, "Isn't there a good deal of it to keep clean, dear?"</p> + +<p>It was the first time Joan had noticed her mother's new little air of +weary indifference.</p> + +<p>"Ah, but in the South one cannot be cramped for room," replied the Major +largely. "There is hospitality to be considered! You must remember that +our daughter's début into society will take place from this house, my +love. Who knows?—perhaps her wedding!" He pinched Joan's cheek +playfully. "How do you like it, Dollykins?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all," she replied, too discouraged to be euphonious just then. +"It's hideous, and there's a grocer-shop opposite, and Mother'll never +sleep with these horrid cars jangling by. Why can't we have a house in +one of those pretty green courts, Daddy?"</p> + +<p>The Major looked pained. Mary came to the rescue. A few years ago she +would have explained bluntly that they could not afford one of the +pretty green courts. Now she said with a rallying smile, "What! Not a +banal, stupid, uninteresting new bungalow such as one might have in +Pittsburgh, or Oshkosh, or Kalamazoo, Michigan! Where's your sense of +local color, child? The atmosphere wouldn't be right at all!"</p> + +<p>Joan thought that the atmosphere of this neighborhood seemed to be +largely compounded of soot and sewer-gas; but she did not say so.</p> + +<p>Richard Darcy, brightening, pointed out that while the house indeed +faced a grocery-shop (so convenient for Ellen!), its rear was separated +only by an alley from the rear of a house which faced upon a very fine +avenue indeed; a backyard in which at the moment lingerie of a faint +flesh-pink disported lacy ruffles and kicked airy silken limbs upon a +clothes line. (Of this lingerie more anon.)</p> + +<p>"Evidently," pronounced the Major with an unconscious eye upon it, "a +desirable neighborhood in every way."</p> + +<p>So the lease was signed, and Ellen Neal and the furniture sent for, and +the first month's rent paid in advance; and these feats having been +accomplished, Mary Darcy took to her familiar bed and died there, +promptly and unobtrusively as was her way, without leaving any +inconsiderate doctors' and nurses' bills behind her.</p> + +<p>That first summer in Kentucky was a strange time to Joan. It was filled +with dim memories of the books she read aloud to her father day after +day, in the futile effort to be a companion to him; of long walks she +took with him in the cool of the evenings, through streets and parks and +suburbs that were as strange to the man who had come back to them, Joan +suspected, as to herself; and far more desolate. For the ghost of a boy +haunted them; a mischievous, headstrong, innocent lad who had meant no +harm to the world, nor to himself, in those days.</p> + +<p>Sometimes in the older streets he pointed out to her houses which came +near to fulfilling her best hopes of pillared Southern mansions.</p> + +<p>"Tim Throckmorton used to live there," he would say, forlornly; or +"Many's the time I've courted pretty Sally Field in that parlor!"</p> + +<p>Now there were "Furnished Room" signs in the windows, or shops in the +lower floors, or, worst degeneracy of all, signs of negro habitation. +For many a day the two hunted for a certain dearly remembered pond where +a boy named Dick and his friends had been wont to repair for fishing and +swimming and many a feat of derring-do. But they never found it; only +houses already old, and even office-buildings, in the place where it +might have been.</p> + +<p>And in those long and lonely walks they met no friends. It was as if for +Richard Darcy the streets of Louisville were peopled by the dead.</p> + +<p>Joan had suffered for her father even more than for herself. Somehow she +felt that she was better able to bear things than her father. And in her +inner consciousness, lonely as she was for her mother, and must always +be, she knew that the misery in her heart was a thing that would pass. +She was too young to be so sad for long.</p> + +<p>Old Ellen wisely kept her busy with her preparations for +boarding-school, her father having announced his intention of complying +scrupulously with his dead wife's wishes, no matter at what cost to +himself. Joan thought this very generous of him, although the cost was +figurative rather than literal, as Mrs. Darcy's little property was +willed to her child, with himself as guardian. Sometimes she had been a +little ashamed of herself for the willingness with which she prepared to +leave him, the eagerness with which she longed for the merry +companionships and irresponsibilities of school again. But perhaps it +was natural enough, considering that throughout that dreary summer her +sole companions had been her grief-stricken father, the servant Ellen, +and the sympathetic maiden cousins, who would have felt it indelicate to +so much as smile in the presence of such deep mourning.</p> + +<p>Toward the end of the summer she made one other acquaintance, thanks to +the above-mentioned lingerie. One of the sudden summer wind-storms which +occur sometimes in the Ohio Valley landed in their yard one Monday +morning a garment that had strayed unmistakably from the clothes line +across the alley; a trifle of palest silk and lace and blue ribbons +which Ellen Neal eyed with dark suspicion, but which Joan privately +determined to copy for herself so soon as finances permitted.</p> + +<p>Monday being the day when Ellen's temper was at its most difficult, Joan +decided to abate her dignity to the point of returning the article +herself; and so she made her way, looking very young and touching in her +homemade black frock, to the front entrance of the house across the +alley. And there by good luck she met, just alighting in her +porte-cochère from a most imposing limousine, a person who was +indubitably the owner of the strayed garment; a plump, blonde, dimpled +lady who suggested pink <i>crêpe de Chine</i> and blue satin bows all over +her. She greeted Joan with an effulgence that seemed out of all +proportion to its cause, until in the course of conversation it +transpired that she, like the Darcys, was a newcomer in Louisville, and +rather lonely. Her name was Mrs. Calloway, and she came, as she vaguely +explained, from "across the river."</p> + +<p>"It isn't as easy to get acquainted here as I thought it would be," she +admitted naïvely, "Still," she added with her dimpling smile, "I expect +folks will be friendly enough, once they get to know me, don't you +think?"</p> + +<p>"Of course they will!" murmured Joan quite sincerely; for despite the +woman's patent vulgarity, there was something attractive about her. One +felt above all things that she was kind; and just then kindness meant a +good deal to the lonely girl.</p> + +<p>This kindness began at once to manifest itself. Elaborate desserts and +salads, in very ornate dishes, made their way across the alley to the +Darcy table; obligations scrupulously returned by Ellen with pickles and +preserves of her own making. There were other generosities, more +difficult to return in kind; candy, automobile drives, hothouse flowers, +the latter evidently meant for the grave where Mary Darcy lay among +strangers.</p> + +<p>Over these attentions Ellen Neal grumbled frequently. "Your pa certainly +ain't noticin' much these days, or he'd never let you get so thick with +a strange woman we don't know nothin' about, Joan."</p> + +<p>"A strange <i>lady</i>, Ellen," corrected Joan with dignity.</p> + +<p>"Humph! Lady is as lady does. Look at her face, all painted up like a +sign-board!"</p> + +<p>"Southern ladies quite frequently rouge," said Joan out of her recent +observations; but she did not pursue the subject, for she herself had +doubts as to her father's approval of this new acquaintance. Richard +Darcy was no democrat. He had been heard frequently to state, as one +rather proud of the confession, that he had no use whatever for the +<i>canaille</i> (which he pronounced "<i>canile</i>.")</p> + +<p>Hence she was a little embarrassed and uneasy when, one Sunday morning +as she and her father were starting on their weekly visit to the one bit +of his native soil owned so far by Richard Darcy—his wife's grave—a +limousine drew up at their door, out of which beamed the face of Mrs. +Calloway, beneath a broad pink hat.</p> + +<p>"I suspected you'd be off to the cemetery this fine morning," she called +out cheerily, "and I thought I'd come and take you, you and your father. +Hop right in, both of you. No, it won't be a bit of trouble. I've +nothing else to do, and I always did love a cemetery anyway—it's the +first place I go to whenever I strike a new town."</p> + +<p>Joan glanced nervously at her father, wondering how he would take this +initial encounter with Mrs. Calloway. But after a moment's pause of +sheer astonishment, the Major's native gallantry came to the rescue, and +he advanced for the introduction with all the manner of one about to be +presented at court.</p> + +<p>They found themselves bowling along at a smart clip among the +churchgoers and the more lively joy-riders, out for a Sunday's pleasure, +which thronged the avenue that sultry August morning.</p> + +<p>"Now isn't this better than a poky old street-car?" demanded Mrs. +Calloway archly.</p> + +<p>The Major responded in kind. "Undoubtedly! Particularly in the matter of +company."</p> + +<p>Joan's liking for her kind-hearted neighbor had suffered a sudden +eclipse. Ellen was right about her—"Lady is as lady does." It was worse +than vulgar to force herself upon them at such a time—it was unfeeling, +indecent. She envied her father's poise. She had never seen him appear +to such advantage as upon this trying occasion, in his new, cheap black +suit which had not as yet had time to acquire spots and wrinkles, his +fine features showing the ravages of sorrow, his handsome gray head bent +courteously toward this voluble companion as though her every word were +priceless. Manners, she reflected, cannot be assumed on occasion like +garments, but are a part of the very texture of a personality. She could +not imagine her father anything but suavely courteous, even under the +most untoward circumstance.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, beneath her pride in him lingered an odd fear lest, now +that he had an audience, he might be moved to oratory over her mother's +grave. With Richard Darcy emotion and the expression of it were usually +simultaneous. Joan's unresponsiveness (a trait which she hated in +herself, but could not help) had hitherto kept her father somewhat in +check; but in the presence of a kindly warmth of sympathy like Mrs. +Calloway's there was no telling what might happen.</p> + +<p>The Major, however, contented himself with murmuring, as he approached +the grave, "She was very, very dear to me!" in so touching a voice that +Mrs. Calloway openly wiped her eyes, exclaiming, "You poor man! Don't +you think I understand—I, who've laid away two of them?"</p> + +<p>Joan moved hastily out of earshot, leaving the pair to reminiscence. +Talk of things that hurt was to the girl like pouring acid upon an open +wound; but if it helped her poor father, by all means let it help him. +She had never made the mistake of thinking that because his grief was +facile it was any the less strong and real. His utter helplessness, his +stunned amaze that the wife he so sorely needed could have gone away and +left him to bear the vicissitudes of life without her, were as piteous +to his daughter as the wailing grief of a child. If she could have +comforted him in any way other than by speech she would have done so. In +the presence of great emotion she was dumb—though she sometimes thought +she might be able to write him what she felt. Often at night she lay +awake for hours, wondering how she could drive out of his eyes that +baffled, frightened look which always came when things went wrong with +him, and which only her mother had been able to banish....</p> + +<p>It haunted her all through the months which followed, that look of her +father's; and sometimes in the midst of school-girl gaieties she would +fall suddenly silent, thinking that she had no right to enjoy herself +because he was there alone in the city of his childhood which seemed to +have forgotten him. Joan was not yet quite the hard young egotist she +intended to become.</p> + +<p>And so when toward the end of her journey the train slid into a pleasant +country, mellow with the evening sun, long reaches of rolling pasture +and hill and fertile bottom-land that meant Kentucky, something welled +up in the girl's heart deeper than glamour of place, stronger than +regret for her sheltered little past, than fear and hope for her +unguessed future; perhaps the deepest and strongest feeling life plants +in the human soul—the blood-tie. Weak or brave, fraud or fool or +honorable gentleman—perhaps a little of all these things—it was her +father who waited there for a woman to come and make him a home again; +and Joan was ready.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + + +<p>The fellow-traveler who had incurred Miss Darcy's displeasure by a +too-active sympathy was much pleased, being of a sentimental turn of +mind, to witness a family reunion which presently took place in the +station at Louisville. A tall, slender gentleman of a youngish +Confederate colonel type—gray mustache and imperial, with a soft hat +set very slightly to one side of his handsome head—detached himself +from the crowd with a cry of, "Here I am, Dollykins!"</p> + +<p>Whereupon the girl dropped all her belongings, and cast herself upon him +speechless, to be lifted well off the ground and hugged and kissed very +thoroughly.</p> + +<p>"Fine! She's got a father, anyway, and a bully old bird at that," +thought the young man, who had never owned either father or mother or +much of anything else that he could remember. It was his further +privilege to hurry after the pair with a suit-case, some magazines, and +a box of candy which both had characteristically forgotten.</p> + +<p>He was thanked by Major Darcy with an affable smile, and by his daughter +with a curt, impersonal nod of dismissal after Sister Mary Joseph's best +manner; which also pleased him, for he was by no means a thin-skinned +young man, and preferred his gentlewomen haughty. He followed the pair +far enough to observe the vehicle to which the father was obviously +conducting her.</p> + +<p>"Humph!" he said to himself; "rich people!" and turned away, rather +disappointed. (Why this should be, the writer cannot say, being merely a +chronicler of facts.)</p> + +<p>Joan's flow of excited babble paused as she herself saw this vehicle. +"Goodness! Are we going home in a taxicab? What grandeur!" she murmured, +mentally figuring out the tariff. Then the monogram on the door +enlightened her.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's Mrs. Calloway's," she said, relieved, a little ashamed to have +quite forgotten the existence of their well-meaning neighbor. "How good +of her to send it for me!" she added with a giggle, recalling her recent +game of Pretend. "All you need to do to complete the picture, Daddy, is +to say, 'Home, James!'"</p> + +<p>Major Darcy obligingly murmured, "Home, James!" The chauffeur touched +his cap, and enclosed them in the perfumed elegance of the limousine.</p> + +<p>Joan gave a crow of laughter, and rubbed her cheek affectionately +against her father's sleeve. This was like old times indeed, happy old +times, when in his lighter moments the Major had frequently entered into +the spirit of her play. The contact of his sleeve was unusually soft, +and she suddenly held him at arm's length to see him better.</p> + +<p>"Why, Major Darcy! If you haven't gone and bought yourself a new suit in +honor of the occasion. A beauty, too!"</p> + +<p>He surveyed what he could of himself complacently. "The fellow has given +me rather a good fit, I think."</p> + +<p>Joan gasped. "'The fellow!' Then it's not a ready-made—you've actually +been to a tailor for it? Oh, Daddy darling!" she cried excitedly, "have +you been making money?"</p> + +<p>The Major's eyebrows lifted. "I believe," he remarked, "that I have +usually made money, have I not? Sufficient, at least, to keep my family +comfortable."</p> + +<p>Joan was reminded with a jerk of Darcy traditions. "Of course!" She +flushed. "I didn't mean—"</p> + +<p>And suddenly she realized that the look she had been so long dreading to +see in his eyes, that expression of anxiety which was almost fear, had +quite disappeared. There was an air about him of security, of +nonchalance, as one who would say, "Bring on your Indians! Who's +afraid?" (Not that the Major would have condescended to know the meaning +of the family expression, "Indians.")</p> + +<p>Joan gave his hand a quick little squeeze that was oddly maternal. "I'm +so glad, Dad," she said quietly; and went on to speak of other things.</p> + +<p>They turned into the street where home was. Silence fell upon her. The +prospect of facing her mother's absence was more difficult than she had +thought it would be. At least there was Ellen to comfort her; gruff, +matter-of-fact old Ellen, always at her crossest when most deeply moved. +She pinned her thoughts to Ellen.</p> + +<p>The Major's recent prosperity seemed not to have affected his +dwelling-place as yet. As they drew near, Joan saw even in the dusk that +the little lawn in front needed attention; nor was there so much as a +light in the window to greet her—Ellen was always so careful about the +gasbill. Then, as the limousine did not stop, she realized the For Rent +sign on the door.</p> + +<p>"Why, Dad, we've moved!" she cried with an odd pang at her heart. "Oh, +but where?"</p> + +<p>"Wait and see. 'Lay-lows for meddlers,'" he smiled, pleased with his +little stage-effect.</p> + +<p>The limousine bowled smoothly around the corner into the fashionable +avenue beyond; and Joan thought, with a habit of anxiety beyond her +years, that the new money would not last long if they were to live in +such a neighborhood as this. But they stopped at a door she remembered, +an imposing door with a porte-cochère, where, still as in her game of +Pretend, a lady in a tea-gown stood waiting for them. Not, however, her +mother.</p> + +<p>"Here you are at last, girlie!" cried the cheery voice of Mrs. Calloway; +and she was received into a voluminous pink chiffon embrace, highly +scented with the latest thing in perfumes.</p> + +<p>Joan fought her way quite rudely out of this embrace, feeling +suffocated. Her knees had begun to tremble.</p> + +<p>"Are—are we visiting you!" she quavered, piteously putting off the +inevitable.</p> + +<p>The lady laughed, a laugh as plump and soft and cushiony as the rest of +her. "There, now, Dickie; I don't believe you've had the nerve to tell +her yet!"</p> + +<p>She rustled over and stood beside the Major, slightly in front of him, +so that she could lean back archly against his shoulder; a position +which seemed to bring an arm automatically into position about her +waist.</p> + +<p>"Dollykins," said Richard Darcy, clearing his throat and not quite +meeting the girl's wide gaze, "this is my—my graduation gift to you. +Your new mamma!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + + +<p>Joan was alone at last in such a bed as she had never occupied in her +life, even in her most luxurious games of Pretend. To her inexperience +the sheets felt as if made of softest silk—at its crest the Darcy +establishment had never run to fine linen—and they were edged with lace +which Joan longed frugally to transfer to a best petticoat; only that +there seemed no need for her to trouble further about best petticoats, +nor about anything else. Under the eager guidance of her "new mamma," +drawer after drawer in the room she occupied had been opened to disclose +piles of exquisite underthings, of the sort Joan had first encountered +upon the Calloway clothes lines, except that these were white instead of +pink.</p> + +<p>"Pink's <i>my</i> color," explained the former Mrs. Calloway. "Besides, white +lawngerie seems sort of better for a girl that's never been married, +don't you think? Even if it isn't so becoming. 'Tain't as if there was +anybody to see her in it," she added, with a conscious blush.</p> + +<p>Joan found no suitable comment to make upon this treasure-trove. Her +lips would not utter anything beyond a perfunctory "Thank you," even +when further investigation discovered a closet hung with dresses of +every sort, with peignoirs, with motor-coats and dainty wraps, with +everything in the way of finery which every girl alive hopes at some +time to possess, but which the daughter of Richard Darcy had learned to +look upon from afar with an air of indifference.</p> + +<p>"Are these all for me?" she asked dully.</p> + +<p>"Of course they are! Just a few little models I had sent up on +approval." (The ex-Mrs. Calloway invariably referred to her costumes in +affectionate diminutives, as "little gowns," "little negligées," "little +hats," etc., though the adjective could rarely be said to fit them.) "If +these don't suit we'll get others—though anything ought to look good on +your form, dearie." She added, clasping her hands, "It certainly is fun +shoppin' for a daughter of your own!"—an outburst which might have +struck some responsive chord in a heart less young than Joan's, less +hard and tight and bitter with the tears that would not come.</p> + +<p>Major Darcy had observed her apathy under this rain of largesse with +some disapproval. It was not the first time he had secretly wished that +his daughter might have inherited a trifle more of the Darcy manner. At +length, as the girl stood looking about her new room silently, still +with the strange lack of comment that seemed like indifference, he +ventured a remonstrance.</p> + +<p>"I don't think you quite realize how much time and thought and trouble +your—er, your mother and I have expended on these little surprises for +your home-coming, Dollykins. Or you would be more appreciative."</p> + +<p>"<i>My mother!</i>" repeated Joan to herself with a sick gasp.</p> + +<p>It was the bride who came to her rescue. "She's tired out, Major, that's +all. And no wonder! She hardly ate a bite of dinner. You go right to bed +and sleep, girlie," she advised comfortably. "In the morning you'll be +better able to enjoy all your pretties."</p> + +<p>So Joan was at last alone, wondering whether she would ever be able to +enjoy anything again; alone in a strange room crowded with large blond +bird's-eye maple furniture which reminded her oddly of her step-mother; +with pale blue walls, a blue rug, blue silk covers on chairs and bed, +blue stationery spread out on the desk, all to match. There was nothing, +not a chair, nor book nor picture, to remind its forlorn inhabitant of +home; until suddenly, lost amid the glitter of the silver on the +dressing-table, she discovered a faded photograph of her mother which +her father had for many years carried in his pocket. This she jerked out +of the opulent silver frame that disguised it, and held hungrily to her +cheek, going to bed with it finally under her pillow. It did not occur +to her to wonder who had put it there. (But it was not Richard Darcy.)</p> + +<p>Yet still the tears would not come. She lay staring into the dark with +hot, dry, aching eyes, repeating agonizingly to herself the questions +she had not found courage to ask her father—foolish, trivial questions +that seemed almost irrelevant in the face of this overwhelming +calamity.... What had he done with the furniture, their furniture, the +dear, shabby tables and chairs and hangings which were part of the home +Mary Darcy had given her life in making?... And where was Ellen? What +had he done with Ellen? Was there to be nothing left?</p> + +<p>Once she whispered aloud, "How <i>could</i> he?"—but resolutely turned her +mind away from that. It did not bear thinking of. The luxury of the room +seemed to crowd upon her, choking her.... The price of her father's +shame!...</p> + +<p>It seemed to her near morning when her door opened, softly. She began to +shiver, thinking it must be her father come for the intimate explanatory +talk which was inevitable between them. What could she say to him? How +could she ever find anything to say to her father again?</p> + +<p>But it was not Richard Darcy who tiptoed in. The lamp beside her bed +clicked on, revealing a good deal of the former Mrs. Calloway in a +marvellous nightgown, her golden head as carefully coiffed as for a +ball.</p> + +<p>"Major's off and going strong," she announced, "so I slipped away to see +how you were gettin' on, dearie. I Had a kind of feelin' you wouldn't be +asleep yet. I'm like that myself in a strange bed.... Look here," her +voice changed as she saw the white and miserable face among the +pillows—"you aren't holding it against your papa and me, girlie, +because we sprung this on you as a surprise? I <i>told</i> Major we ought to +wait till you came home! But it was you who introduced us, you know; and +I knew it would be all right as soon as we got to know each other +better. And Major wouldn't hear to waiting, was bound and determined to +have me just as soon as he could get me. Men,"—she laughed her plump, +merry laugh—"are such babies when it comes to havin' what they want +right away, ain't they?"</p> + +<p>"Are they?" said Joan dully.</p> + +<p>"You take it from me they are! A man that doesn't want you quick don't +want you at all. And I must say your father needed marryin' more than +any one I <i>ever</i> saw! Spots all over his clothes, and that shiny in the +back you could see your face in him. Your mother must have had a time +keepin' that man neat! Besides, if we'd waited till you came, what would +we have done with you on the honeymoon? Not," she added coyly, "that +it's over yet, by any means! When he was on his death-bed Calloway said +to me, says he, 'Effie May, our honeymoon never has been over, has it?' +Some women are that way, just naturally affectionate and fond of makin' +men feel at home. And both of us were real lonesome.... You don't blame +me for marrying Major, do you?" she finished rather wistfully.</p> + +<p>Joan said after a long pause, "No, I don't think I blame you, Mrs. +Calloway."</p> + +<p>The other gave an unexpected squeal of mirth. "Goodness' sakes, don't +call me <i>that</i>! If you don't feel like callin' me 'mamma' yet"—(there +was a hopeful pause, which Joan did not fill)—"then you might as well +call me Effie May. I'm not so awfully much older than you, I guess—I +was only sixteen when I eloped with my first. But there's one thing I +wanted to tell you"—(her voice lost its confident note and became +rather shy). "I married your father as much to get you as to get him, +dearie. A man's easy enough to pick up anywhere, goodness knows! if +you've got the looks. But a child—" she sighed. "That's something else +again. I used to think I'd like to adopt one, only Calloway didn't want +to be bothered—Say, it was more fun than anything I've ever done in my +life, shopping for lawngerie and little models and all, and telling the +girls in the stores they were for my little girl just coming home from +boarding-school!..."</p> + +<p>At this juncture, for some inexplicable reason—perhaps the warmth of a +kindly human presence, perhaps sheer rage with the vulgar, impossible +creature who, having purchased her father, expected also to purchase +her—whatever brought them, Joan's tears suddenly arrived—a torrent, a +deluge of them; in the midst of which her new mamma, with more tact than +might have been expected of her, disappeared.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + + +<p>"Get up, Jo! Time you was gettin' up. Come, come—it's ten o'clock!"</p> + +<p>A familiar, relentless voice penetrated Joan's consciousness at last, +and she screwed her swollen eyelids down tighter and even managed a +reproving snore, wondering whether the halcyon days would ever come when +she might be allowed to sleep her sleep out in the morning. Probably +not, so long as Ellen Neal was within calling distance. The woman had a +horror of what she called shiftless ways. Once in a moment of special +exasperation she had been heard to mutter, "That's the chief thing +that's the matter with your pa—he's never ready to get up in the +morning!"—a remark which had remained in Joan's memory.</p> + +<p>Now the sheets were suddenly jerked off her, and the relentless voice +continued, "No use pretendin' you're asleep when you ain't. Here's your +breakfast they've sent up to you, child, just as if you was sick a-bed. +Humph!"</p> + +<p>Suddenly reality came back upon her with full force—horrible reality; +and she jumped up in bed and flung her arms around the old servant's +neck, clinging tight, as she had done many a time before when something +frightened her.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Nellen, Nellen!" she moaned. "It's you! I thought you had deserted +me, too!"</p> + +<p>The woman stood immobile in this embrace, making no effort to return it. +But her eyes blinked a little.</p> + +<p>"Sho! What would I want to do that for? Don't be silly—Look out! There +now, if you haven't gone and upset the coffee all over them fancy +sheets! Coffee's hard to get out, too. That's what comes of havin' your +vittles in bedrooms, where they don't belong."</p> + +<p>The tears, which had threatened to take possession of Joan again, turned +into a burst of wild laughter, "No matter! Plenty more where they come +from, Nellen. What is a lace-trimmed sheet to my new mamma? I expect the +very dishcloths are hand-embroidered. Behold the abode of cash, Ellen, +cash! Isn't it grand? Oh," she cried, her voice breaking, "<i>why</i> didn't +you come to me last night! Didn't you know how I'd need you?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't know you was here, child, till I come this morning to see when +him and her was expectin' you."</p> + +<p>The girl's face fell. "Why, Ellen! Aren't you living here?"</p> + +<p>"Me? In this house? I wouldn't so demean myself," said the other primly.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to say"—Joan's cheeks were hot—"that after all these +years, and everything you've done for us, my father has <i>let you go</i>?"</p> + +<p>Ellen tossed her head. "'Twan't none of his lettin', child. I told him +that all things considered I'd ruther sew for my livin'. And so I would. +Your time's your own that way, and you see more of folks. I like folks. +I must say," she added conscientiously, "that woman—your pa's wife—was +real kind about offerin' to get me work with a dressmaker. But Ellen +Neal don't have to be beholden to nobody, thank you!"</p> + +<p>"And where do you live?"</p> + +<p>A mysterious smile twinkled in the woman's eyes. "Some day when you're +good and sick of all this fancy flubdubbery" (she indicated with a +disparaging hand the elegancies of the blue chamber) "you come and see +where I live, Jo, and come often. I've got me two as nice rooms as ever +you seen. And—I got my own furniture for 'em, too, real grand furniture +I bought up cheap at an auction room. There's some carved chairs, and a +walnut desk with a bookcase on top, and some blue velvet porteers, and a +mahogany bed with the tester sawed off—"</p> + +<p>Comprehension dawned on Joan. "Ellen! <i>Our</i> furniture!" she cried.</p> + +<p>Ellen nodded. "Some of it. As much as I could git. I'm keepin' it for +you till you git a home of your own to put it in, Joie. I sort of +thought your ma would want me to."</p> + +<p>Joan was weeping again, not the devastating flood of the past night, but +sweet and healing tears, as good for strained nerves as a summer rain is +good for flowers.</p> + +<p>"You old wretch!" she gulped. "Where did you get the money?"</p> + +<p>The other grinned. "Any time Ellen Neal gets caught without plenty in +her stockin'-fut, you may be sure the Scots blood is failin' her! I'm a +whole lot richer than I'm willin' to let some folks know. Why, I could +set idle, if I'd a mind to, the rest of my life—only I don't hold with +settin' idle just because you got a right." (Long afterwards it occurred +to Joan that Ellen, who was not given to discoursing on her own affairs, +must have had some reason for thus bragging of her unsuspected riches.) +"There's nothing," she added rather irrelevantly, "that makes a person +contented with the place she's in like knowin' she can go somewhere else +if she's a mind to."</p> + +<p>What barrier there had been between servant and mistress—a fluctuating +barrier at best, dependent upon Joan's varying conceptions of her own +dignity—had gone down forever under that rain of grateful tears, and +Joan felt free to ask some of the questions of which her heart was +full—how, for instance, the affair between her father and Mrs. Calloway +had begun.</p> + +<p>"How?" repeated Ellen grimly. "Well, when a lone female and a lone +he-male ain't got nothin' to keep 'em apart but an alley-fence, and her +with paint on her face till she looks like a fat sixteen, and food on +her table every day as good as a two-dollar table d'hôte, what can you +expect? I wa'n't surprised myself. Nor," she added quietly, "I don't +believe your ma would be, Joan."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but how it must have hurt her!"</p> + +<p>Both spoke in low tones, as if the spirit of Mary Darcy might be +lingering near enough to overhear.</p> + +<p>"I ain't so sure about that," mused Ellen. "I ain't so sure! Your ma +always set great store on havin' the Major comfortable—'Ellen,' she +said to me that last day, when we knew what was comin'—'Ellen, be sure +to keep him <i>comfortable</i> here at home, so he won't be lookin' for it +somewheres else.' There's worse things can happen to a widow-man than +gettin' married again."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but if I'd been here to look after him myself!" wailed Joan. "If +you had only told me what was happening! I might have come back and +stopped it!"</p> + +<p>"About as much chance as stopping a fire-hydrant that's blown the top +off. You're a smart child, Joan, always was; but you don't stand a show +against that woman your pa's married—nor I wouldn't want you to," she +added cryptically. "You wasn't raised that way.—Anyhow it wasn't none +of my business. And just remember this, child, it's none of yours. It's +none of yours!"</p> + +<p>After she had gone, a sense of something heartening and bracing remained +with Joan; and as she brushed out her straight, heavy hair with new +silver-backed brushes which bore her own initials, a typical Ellenism +recurred to her: "There's nothing that makes a person contented with the +place she's in like knowing she can go somewheres else if she's a mind +to."</p> + +<p>"At least," she thought suddenly, "I'm independent of father. Mother +left her property to me—I can get it whenever I ask for it.... And now +I understand why!"</p> + +<p>Mary Darcy had been a very far-sighted woman.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + + +<p>It was long before Joan recovered from the dazed sensation her father's +little surprise had produced in her mind. Perhaps she never did quite +recover from it. Something died within her; a naïf belief in the wisdom +of her elders, the ultimate rightness of existing things, which once +gone never returns again. If it is true that we live in experience +rather than in years, Joan came to her majority over night.</p> + +<p>It was her father's attitude which amazed her most. Had he seemed in the +least apologetic, in the least ashamed or embarrassed by the quality of +the woman he had put into her mother's place, she would have been ready +to pity and console and help him make the best of a grave mistake. But +the Major's attitude was that of the cat which has not only eaten the +canary, but digested it and found it extremely beneficial to the system. +Far from seeming apologetic, he appeared rather proud of his +performance. There was something almost pathetic in his content with his +new prosperity, with the ease and luxury of the establishment of which +he found himself head.</p> + +<p>Joan sometimes thought, with a scornful sort of pity, "How Dad must have +<i>hated</i> to be poor!"</p> + +<p>Certainly he took to wealth, to which he had always professed himself +indifferent, with an alacrity which surprised his daughter.</p> + +<p>She had opportunity to notice, too, for the first time in action, +Richard Darcy's chief and perhaps sole equipment for the unequal battle +of life; his talent for making friends. Not for keeping them—that is a +separate art, calling for certain efforts, certain reticences, above all +certain abstentions of which Richard Darcy was temperamentally +incapable. But in the art of creating admiring and useful acquaintances +out of raw material he had few equals, even among his own profession.</p> + +<p>Mary Darcy had kept herself and her child for the most part aloof from +these easily acquired friends of her husband, though they were +invariably quite presentable—(as has been hinted, the Major had no use +whatever for what he called "the canile"). Possibly this was owing to +some odd Puritan scruples on Mary's part about combining business with +pleasure....</p> + +<p>But now that business had no longer to be combined with pleasure, +Richard Darcy was free to exercise to the full his gift for being +agreeable, without afterthought. It was perhaps fortunate that his new +wife had made few friends of her own, a fact which left him unhampered +in the matter of what he called quite seriously "resuming his position."</p> + +<p>Joan found that he was no longer forgotten in the city of his youth. The +older residents had already been made aware by means of engraved and +crested announcements that Richard Throckmorton Darcy had returned to +their midst for the purpose of wedding one Effie May Smith Calloway, and +that the bridal pair would be at home after a certain date at a very +good address on Elmtree Street. Whither quite a respectable number of +them hastened, if only out of curiosity, to leave cards.</p> + +<p>What they found was an extremely affable, leisurely, and +prosperous-looking host, an establishment which appeared able and +willing to maintain those traditions of Southern hospitality which have +latterly fallen somewhat into disuse, and a rather silent young girl +whose manner atoned for the perhaps excessive cordiality of her +step-mother. Some of the callers did not come again, even under +pressure; but on the whole Joan realized that the old friends in whom +she had almost ceased to believe were about to take the Darcy family +belatedly to their bosoms, indifferent to the substitution of a Mrs. +Calloway for her mother.</p> + +<p>It was the girl's first experience of the omnipotence of money; an +experience which if it comes young enough will make a cynic out of a +congenital optimist, which Joan was not.</p> + +<p>To do the new Mrs. Darcy justice, she was an adaptable and, in her way, +a tactful creature who had already in her admiration of the Major and +his daughter, learned to modify her speech and behavior rather +touchingly. And her frank delight with what she called "breaking into +society," may have been rather disarming to society; or to such portion +of it as found its way to the imposing house on Elmtree Street. She was +extremely cordial to her guests, urging them to come often, to have more +iced tea and cake, to take candy home to the children, to try the +Major's cigars and whisky, for which he had an undoubted palate. If the +women looked at her a little askance, the men were loud in her praises, +and obeyed her urgings to come often.</p> + +<p>Effie May, encouraged, began shortly to seek new worlds to conquer.</p> + +<p>"Well, what next?" she demanded one night at dinner, after an afternoon +of callers, stifling a wide pink yawn with the palm of a much beringed +hand. "Your old families are all very well, Dickie boy, refined and +classy and all that—but, my God, they ain't exciting! Now are they? +Isn't there anybody in Louisville born since the Civil War?"</p> + +<p>"If there is, I'm afraid I don't know it," admitted the Major, smiling +indulgently. "You see the people who were young when I left are young no +longer."</p> + +<p>"So we've noticed," murmured his bride, making a companionable grimace +at Joan. "But we don't want to spend the rest of our lives in the +baldhead row, do we, girlie? You've got to find us something under sixty +to pal around with, Hubby mine, that's all there is to it. See?"</p> + +<p>One of her step-mother's most unbearable traits, to Joan, was her habit +of calling the Major absurd comic-supplement pet names. But his dignity +seemed not to suffer from it. In fact he expanded visibly under the +treatment, like a dog whose ears are being tickled.</p> + +<p>"Your commands are law, my angel," he said. "Just how would you suggest +that I go about it?"</p> + +<p>Effie May ruminated, while the two Darcys watched her—with, however, +somewhat varying expressions. The Major appeared to be admiring, indeed +gloating over, the appearance she made at the head of her bountifully +appointed table, in a dress not niggardly in its display of her +bountifully appointed charms. His eye followed appreciatively the curve +of her plump arm as it disappeared into enveloping laces.</p> + +<p>Joan, on the other hand, watched her step-mother warily. There was +something about the woman she could not fathom, for all her surface +simplicity. She felt, beneath the other's careless, easy good-nature, a +certain force, a driving power, in the grip of which she and her father +were mere helpless puppets. Effie May would use them always for her own +ends—whatever those ends might be. Why had she chosen to saddle +herself, free and rich and independent as she was, with an impoverished +gentleman and his grown-up daughter? Certainly at that age, thought Joan +(Effie May was in the neighborhood of forty), people could not possibly +fall in love! No, there was something mysterious about her +step-mother....</p> + +<p>"I have it," said the lady suddenly. "The Country Club! I see in the +society column that everything nowadays is going on at the Country Club. +We'll have to join that."</p> + +<p>"I believe," interposed Joan, flushing, "that people have to be invited +to join a club, don't they, Father?"</p> + +<p>"All right—We'll <i>be</i> invited. Won't we, Dickums?" said the bride, with +a ravishing smile in the Major's direction.</p> + +<p>He rose to the occasion. "Certainly, my love," he replied.</p> + +<p>And they were invited. At any rate, a week or two later found the Darcy +family dining alone at the Country Club, among various other little +table groups, all of whom seemed to know each other intimately.</p> + +<p>To be in and not of this friendly assemblage filled Joan with that most +miserable of all sensations, crowd-loneliness. Even the Major wore a +rather fixed and nervous smile, and mentioned to his wife and daughter +at intervals that Louisville society had changed very much since he used +to frequent it. Only Effie May seemed quite unperturbed, gazing about +her smilingly, and tapping her slippered foot, and nodding her head in +time to the music; meeting the curious glances which strayed in their +direction with a frank interest of her own which might have seemed bold +if it were not so like a pleased child's.</p> + +<p>Joan, intercepting one or two of these glances, looked her step-mother +over critically, and to her relief found her less flamboyant than usual. +She was dressed in white—"Handsome white, not girly-girly muslin like +yours. I'm too stout for that," she had said wisely to Joan—The girl +reflected that it is difficult to look vulgar in white. Mrs. Darcy was +not appreciably different in appearance from many another rather +overdressed matron there, even in the matter of rouge and touched-up +hair.</p> + +<p>As for her father—Richard Darcy would have been a distinguished figure +in any assemblage he chose to enter, with his six feet of gallantly +carried avoirdupois, his finely modeled head, his gray mustache and +imperial concealing a mouth that might otherwise have left something to +be desired. He wore that night—and wore well—clothes of the palest +gray flannel, with socks and buckskin shoes to match, and a gray stripe +in his white tie, and a gray monogram embroidered upon the exquisite +cambric of his handkerchief. This was the parent who a few weeks ago she +had associated irrevocably in her mind with spots and frayed collars! +She found herself wishing that her mother could see him now—she would +be so proud of him!...</p> + +<p>To her own appearance Joan gave little consideration. She had discovered +that the great advantage of good clothes is that you no longer have to +think about them. She was quite unaware of the value in contrasts she +afforded—her small, dark, smoothly combed head lifted proudly on its +long neck, the awkward grace of her thin young body, the pale oval of +her face lit by surprisingly vivid eyes, of the sort that are dreamy and +shadowed until excitement turns them into soft blue fire. She was +excited that night, a little frightened. She did not smile at all, but +there was that about her lips—sensitive, wistful, faintly +drooping—that made more than one person who glanced at the Darcy table +wonder what the smile would be like if it came.</p> + +<p>When the dancing began, Effie May's exuberance could no longer contain +itself.</p> + +<p>"This is something like!" she cried. "This is what I call life! Come on, +Dick—'Waltz me around again, Willie, around, around, around!'"</p> + +<p>"But," protested the Major, "it is some time since I have waltzed, my +love—"</p> + +<p>"Never mind, you'll waltz with me! Anybody can dance with me. The boys +used to call me Lightfoot Ef—Oh, but you'll have to get a partner for +Joan, first, of course; I forgot we had a family along."</p> + +<p>The girl flushed, aghast at the thought of her father whirling in the +midst of that whirling throng. "No, no, Effie May, please—!" she urged. +"Let's just sit here quietly and look on."</p> + +<p>The other laughed aloud. "Naturally! That's what we've come to a dance +for, to sit against the wall and look on—Nonsense! Go and find your +child a partner, Dick, and hurry back. My feet just won't keep still." +She was humming gaily in time with the orchestra.</p> + +<p>The Major, gazing a little blankly at the crowd of strangers before him, +obediently went forth to do her bidding, and Effie May seized the +occasion to give a little womanly advice.</p> + +<p>"Don't you fret, Joan—remember there's as many young fellows in the +world crazy to know girls as there are girls crazy to know them. And +dearie"—her voice sank to a friendly whisper—"warm up to 'em a +little, can't you? Jolly 'em along. Hot air, you know, talk! No +matter what you say, just keep talking. That don't-touch-me, +butter-wouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth air may be all right with the nuns and +the old families but it won't go down with the men. Believe me, dearie! +I know."</p> + +<p>It was a well-meant effort, which had the effect of congealing the +already subdued Joan into something resembling a marble effigy.</p> + +<p>The Major shortly returned, bearing urbanely in his wake a blond young +man who seemed not too unwilling.</p> + +<p>"I want you to meet my wife, sir," he was saying. "I want to have the +pleasure of presenting you to my daughter. Fancy the coincidence, my +dears—this gentleman turns out to be the son of an old schoolmate!"</p> + +<p>Effie May welcomed them with enthusiasm. "Good for you! I had my money +on you, Dickums! Five minutes, and the son of a schoolmate! It's a +record!—Ta-ta, young people! Enjoy yourselves," was her valedictory as +she whirled the Major away, waving her hand over his shoulder.</p> + +<p>Joan stared aghast at the blond young man, who said, "She is an awfully +jolly sort, your mother, isn't she?"</p> + +<p>"Very jolly," agreed Joan faintly. "But she's not my mother."</p> + +<p>"Oh!"</p> + +<p>A silence fell. He seemed to be waiting for her to break it. She gulped, +and said in a firm voice, "Did you come to ask me to dance?"</p> + +<p>The young man indicated politely that such was his intention.</p> + +<p>"You couldn't very well help yourself, could you?" she remarked, and +suddenly burst out laughing—rather hysterical laughter in which the +young man joined embarrassedly.</p> + +<p>"Of course if you'd rather talk—" he murmured.</p> + +<p>Joan jumped to her feet. "Oh, but I wouldn't! I'd rather do <i>anything</i> +than talk—no matter what I say, just talk, warm up to 'em, hot air—I +mean," she explained desperately, "I'm much too shy to talk!"</p> + +<p>"You don't sound very shy."</p> + +<p>"I know—they're the worst sort, the ones who hide it."</p> + +<p>They commenced silently to dance. Presently he confessed, "I'm +rather—shy, myself."</p> + +<p>"Goody!" she exclaimed with relief. "Then we needn't bother to talk at +all."</p> + +<p>They parted quite reluctantly when a whistle blew for the "circle"—a +useful innovation for breaking up relations, by whose aid Joan found +herself exchanging partners at intervals throughout the evening without +finding herself too long on the hands of any. She blessed the inventor +of the circle. Youth and a pair of winged feet came to her rescue, and +she forgot her strangeness in sheer joy of motion. The people she danced +with that night were not men; they were as trees walking, for all the +personal memory she kept of them.</p> + +<p>But when the music finally thumped itself out, and Effie May, a trifle +blown and moist about the brow, again resumed charge of her scattered +family, saying, "Well, dearie, you've had a pretty good time, haven't +you?"—Joan was able to answer with some surprise that she had.</p> + +<p>"Dancing," commented the Major, puffing, "is a very healthful exercise; +indeed, an esthetic exercise. The Greeks practised it, as I recall, +extensively, even in their riper years. My love, with a little +experience I think I shall easily master that step you call the fox +trot."</p> + +<p>"Sure you will," encouraged she who had been called Lightfoot Ef, +patting his cheek maternally.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + + +<p>The Darcys' social career appeared to be well launched. Each Saturday +night found them at the Country Club, and no longer dining in +loneliness. Effie May speedily collected about her a group of congenial +spirits, for the most part young people, among whom she was extremely +popular—far more so than was Joan, who sometimes felt as if she were +the only elder present. Theirs was usually the most hilarious table in +the room. Corks popped freely, and there was much horse-play, and +throwing about of bread, and at a certain stage of the evening rather +frank persiflage in which, to Joan's relief, her step-mother took no +part. She laughed her cheery, plump laugh, and made no comment; but more +than once with a glance at her step-daughter, she managed quite deftly +to steer the conversation into other channels. Joan came to the +gratifying conclusion that her father's wife was afraid of her.</p> + +<p>The Major at his end of the table devoted himself assiduously to his +duties as host, seeing that glasses were filled, distributing gallant +remarks among the ladies, constantly signing tickets. He was in his +element; expanding, positively glowing, with hospitality.</p> + +<p>"Another cigar, my boy? Try this brand! Take several! Fill your pockets +with them. I can recommend them personally!"</p> + +<p>There came to be several brands which he could recommend personally, +several vintages as well. The waiters hovered about him like cherubim +about the throne of grace, and he knew them all by name, and took an +interest in their families.</p> + +<p>This lavish generosity, Joan reflected, was the spirit which gave the +old South its glamour, its traditions—to say nothing of its consequent +poverty. There was something rather fine and large about the Major's +apparent obliviousness of the fact that the money he spent so royally +did not belong to him.</p> + +<p>"If Effie May does not worry, why should I?" argued his daughter with +herself. Her father's affairs were no longer her concern; if indeed they +had ever been. But she could not help taking a certain uneasy interest +in them.</p> + +<p>"How do you happen to know enough people to invite to all these parties +of yours?" she asked Effie May, aware that the Darcy family was doing +rather more than its share of entertaining.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you don't have to know people well to ask 'em to parties," +explained the other innocently. "And once they eat with you, they're +your friends."</p> + +<p>"That depends upon what you give them to eat!" interjected the Major, +chuckling.</p> + +<p>It seemed a primitive conception of social relationships, but not on the +whole a false one. Joan thought of the Arab and his salt....</p> + +<p>"Food," she wrote to Stefan Nikolai, "appears to be the Tie that Binds."</p> + +<p>"What about drink?" he inquired on a post-card. (They did a good deal of +this staccato correspondence, Joan liking to exchange deep thoughts with +him, as she expressed it, "while they were hot.")</p> + +<p>"Drink," she replied on another, "is the Tie that Loosens!..."</p> + +<p>Stefan Nikolai was the only one of her friends with whom she had found +courage to discuss her father's marriage. Writing things out to him was +almost like writing them out to herself. It served somehow to clear her +mind. It is probable that Mr. Nikolai, a student of various phases of +the human problem, got a good deal of valuable vicarious experience out +of young Joan's letters. Certainly he encouraged them.</p> + +<p>It was to him that she confided her discovery that social life is far +more pleasing after dinner than before. She was learning to count, as +surely as does many an experienced hostess, upon the help of the Tie +that Loosens. While she herself had not as yet developed her father's +palate for cocktails and fine vintages she appreciated their effect upon +her partners—for to her men so far were merely partners.</p> + +<p>It was after dinner that Joan's part of the evening began. Then, thanks +to the Tie that Loosens, there was no longer need to make banal +conversation nor to listen to it, no need to pretend friendly interest +in young men to whom she was incurably a stranger, no need of anything +but to yield herself to the music and the first pair of arms that +offered, and float away into Dreamland.</p> + +<p>There was something curiously sensuous to Joan about dancing. It acted +like a drug upon her fancy, stimulating, soothing. She was hardly aware +of whom she danced with, if he could dance. If he could not, she +stopped. This odd impersonality of hers was rather piquant to her +partners. Many a youth who was afraid to talk to "that quiet Darcy +girl—you never know what she's thinking about!"—was not afraid to +dance with her, whenever he got the chance.</p> + +<p>At such times Joan had her rare moments of beauty. With flushed face, +loosened hair, and wide, dreaming eyes, she was as graceful as one of +the three circling maidens in the Primavera—the one who looks wistfully +over her shoulder at the oblivious youth. Unfortunately her lot was cast +among people who did not think in terms of Botticelli. Her step-mother +wondered sometimes whether curling-tongs and perhaps a little rouge +would make her look more like other girls....</p> + +<p>Sometimes people came to the club who attracted Joan's +attention—quieter people than Effie May's friends, more simply dressed, +who never seemed to join in the accentuated hilarity after dinner. Once +in such a group she recognized the girl who had eyed her aloofly on the +train coming home from boarding school. Joan suddenly yearned to do some +aloof eyeing on her own account, now that she was no longer shabby but +wore a frock as smart as any in the room.</p> + +<p>She watched her opportunity, and followed the stranger into the +dressing-room with some such truculent idea in view; but was disarmed by +the courtesy with which the other made room for her at a mirror, where +they powdered their noses side by side in amity. As she was leaving the +room, however, she heard the aloof one murmur to a friend: "What a lot +of strange people one sees at this club nowadays! I wonder where they +all come from? It's getting very mixed."</p> + +<p>Joan went white with anger. She struggled with the temptation to explain +proudly that she was not a strange person, that her name entitled her to +any society she chose to enter, that it was her step-mother who was +"mixed," not she....</p> + +<p>And then she remembered that it was only thanks to her step-mother that +she happened to be there at all.</p> + +<p>For the moment this encounter with the enemy took away Joan's heart for +dancing. Crowd-loneliness got her by the throat. Was there always to be +just one of her, and so many of everybody else?</p> + +<p>She slipped out on to a terrace that overlooked a valley with the great +river gleaming far off, still holding some faint glow of the sunset's +aftermath. There was a bench at the far end, lost in shadow, and she was +about to seat herself there when she saw that it was already occupied.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she said, drawing back. "I didn't notice you!"</p> + +<p>"Women rarely do," remarked a plaintive voice with a smile in it. "I'm +used to that. And yet I notice them, dreadfully!"</p> + +<p>Joan laughed a little, and retreated. "I won't disturb you," she +murmured; but the voice held her.</p> + +<p>"Oh, please! Please do. I want to be disturbed. I simply came here to +see my moonrise." A shadowy arm pointed out a dim glow over the trees to +eastward.</p> + +<p>"Why <i>your</i> moonrise, especially?"</p> + +<p>"By right of discovery. I seem to be the only person aware of it.... May +I share it with you?"</p> + +<p>"You are sure you wouldn't rather see it alone?"</p> + +<p>"Goodness gracious!" cried the voice quite querulously, "what human +being ever wanted to watch a moonrise alone?"</p> + +<p>Joan chuckled, and sat down to the first conversation she had enjoyed +since her last one with Stefan Nikolai—one of the few real +conversations, she thought afterwards, in her life.</p> + +<p>Yet it was difficult to remember the many things they talked about. +Smoke, for one. He pointed out the dim loveliness of the city below, +towers and battlements and the airy span of a bridge against the +gray-gold sky.</p> + +<p>"'Many-storied Camelot town,'" he said, musing. "Without the shrouding +smoke, what would it be? Factory chimneys, iron smoke-stacks, a +filtration plant—Ugliness, ugliness! Yet there are people in that town +who want to rid themselves of those billowing mists of rose and violet +and silver."</p> + +<p>"I suppose," said Joan, "the beauty of smoke depends upon whether you're +down in it, getting smuts on your nose, or looking on from a hilltop."</p> + +<p>"A question of perspective, you think? Hmnn—yes. Well, then" he said +reasonably, "by all means <i>get</i> your perspective. Stick to the +hilltop—especially at sunset."</p> + +<p>"We haven't all got wings to reach a hilltop with, you see. Nor yet +automobiles."</p> + +<p>"I haven't, myself," he said. "I use trolley-cars.... Did it ever occur +to you what a marvel the trolley-car is? For a nickel—or at most a +dime—all Nature is yours to command; beechwoods in their autumn field +of the cloth of gold; little whispering streams breaking their winter +silence, fireflies dancing—to the tune of the 'Merry Widow' waltz," (as +that melody of the moment made itself audible from the house beyond). +"What a twilight! Fireflies, an afterglow, and the moonrise set to +music, all at once," he said under his breath. "And some one to share +them with!"</p> + +<p>Joan was silent, flattered by the knowledge that this whimsical +gentleman was letting her into his thoughts.</p> + +<p>"The beauty of such a moment is that one never loses it," he mused. "One +puts it away as people press flowers in books, to be looked at +when—when pleasant things need remembering. I thank God for a mind well +stocked with beautiful occasions!"</p> + +<p>"Wild Evenings I Have Known," murmured Joan, frivolously, because for +some reason she was rather touched.</p> + +<p>He nodded, "With wild people in them. Like you."</p> + +<p>"Me! Wild?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know on the surface you're a demure, well-behaved young miss, but +underneath—good gracious! You'd shock these people to death!"—he +indicated certain hilarious couples who had waltzed onto the terrace +near them. "Yes, you're quite untamed, my dear. Wild as a—chipmunk."</p> + +<p>Joan leaned toward him, "How did you guess?"</p> + +<p>"I've watched you dance. And then—well, I've never quite got used to +the cage myself, perhaps." He began to hum under his breath a tuneless +little ditty:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"It is a very dreadful thing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To be so fat a child,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To have to sit around all day<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And yet to feel so wild."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"At least," laughed Joan, "I'm not fat!"</p> + +<p>"No!" he said soberly, "never get fat. It is the beginning of the +end.... By fat I mean old. And cautious. Ugh!"</p> + +<p>How the conversation came about to apple-trees, Joan never was sure; but +he told her about one he had discovered somewhere in the deep woods, all +in bloom, a little old gnarled affair hidden among giant first growth +sycamores and elms and beeches.</p> + +<p>"An apple-tree lost in the woods! How do you suppose it got away from +civilization?" wondered the girl.</p> + +<p>"Some bird, perhaps; or Johnny Appleseed."</p> + +<p>"Who was he?"</p> + +<p>"Fancy living in Kentucky without knowing about the first and greatest +of our pioneers! He was a daft old creature—an innocent, as the kind +phrase goes—who used to wander away from the settlement where he lived +into the wilderness, scattering apple seeds. All over this Ohio Valley +he journeyed, sowing his orchards for the benefit of those who were to +follow. The Indians let him pass, the wild animals did not harm him; +only his friends locked him up whenever they could catch him, because it +seemed such a silly thing to do. Friends are that way ... Years later, +when the pioneers fought their way at last over the mountains to stay, +they found here and there apple-trees blossoming and fruiting in the +great, lonely wilderness; and wherever that happened their wives made +them build cabins and settle down, for of all things that grow an +apple-tree most suggests home. So mad old Johnny Appleseed was the +founder of many cities."</p> + +<p>"And yet there is no monument to him!"</p> + +<p>"Except the cities...."</p> + +<p>Here a young man appeared to claim Joan for the next dance—the blond +young man with whom she had commenced her dancing career, and who had +formed quite a habit of looking for her whenever the music played.</p> + +<p>She rose with reluctance. "I wish <i>you'd</i> come in and dance with me," +she said to her new friend. "I'm sure you could!"</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I could, too," he replied, "if I hadn't my body with me. As it +is, I'll just sit out here and make believe I'm dancing with you—In a +starlit glade. With the other young nymphs and dryads..." the whimsical +voice followed her.</p> + +<p>The blond young man stared. "Of all the assorted nuts!" he remarked, +when they were out of earshot.</p> + +<p>"Yes—but who is he?" demanded Joan eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Something on the stock exchange. I see him there every day."</p> + +<p>"The stock exchange!"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Oh, he writes poems and things for the papers, too, I think. Quite +a literary guy." He mentioned the name.</p> + +<p>It is a name known and remembered wherever there are moonrises and +fireflies, smoke against the sunset, apple-trees in bloom—all the +everyday lovely things people forget to see unless there are poets to +remind them...</p> + +<p>It gave Joan quite a new zest in living to realize that at any moment, +even at Country Clubs, it is possible to run across a poet.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + + +<p>Richard Darcy was accepting the change that had come into his life much +as he had accepted others of a less fortunate trend. He had become at +last what Nature had always intended him to be, one of the world's +chosen, a rich man—or, what was even better because less troublesome, +the husband of a rich woman. He was also once more an honored citizen of +his native commonwealth—where he had not always been entirely an +honored citizen, owing to one of the unfortunate mistakes to which youth +is liable. There had been some disagreement with an early employer about +the right of employees to divert the firm's funds, temporarily of +course, to private uses. Only family influence had prevented this +misunderstanding from resulting in truly disastrous consequences, which +he shuddered to this day to contemplate. But it had prevented; and the +early employer was dead (as Richard Darcy had taken pains to ascertain +before returning to Louisville), and the few who knew of this painful +episode at the time appeared to have forgotten it.</p> + +<p>Very good! He was quite willing to forget it himself. It was Richard +Darcy's creed that a gentleman takes whatever comes in his stride, +without too many backward glances; and his stride was just now adapting +itself gracefully to the one-step.</p> + +<p>Joan, watching her father sometimes with a faint recrudescence of pride +in his sheer good looks, decided that he was the only stomached person +she had seen who could perform the one-step without loss of dignity. He +footed the measure indulgently, as a bishop or a cardinal might have +footed it, with an air of spiritual detachment, as it were, while yet +seeming to receive and to bestow a priceless privilege. Even lively +young girls liked to dance with the Major. It made them feel uplifted. +If he pressed the hand or the waist of his prettier partners more +closely than necessary, the pressure seemed almost impersonal, a mere +tribute to a sex which he could not but regard with tenderness, being +himself a husband and a father.</p> + +<p>In addition to this valuable social acquirement, the Major further +fortified his popularity by inventing and promoting (uncommercially, of +course) a beverage which shortly bade fair to make him famous, and which +was christened by grateful habitués of the Country Club the "Dick Fizz." +Its ingredients were—but that is a secret not at the author's disposal. +Suffice it to say that the "Dick Fizz" achieved results that were all +and more than could be expected of it. (Among others, the Major's +election to a certain gentlemen's club which had hitherto remained +annoyingly unaware of him. So much for the power of the Tie that +Loosens!)</p> + +<p>It was thanks to the "Dick Fizz," too, that there presently came about +between Richard Darcy and his daughter that heart-to-heart interview +which had been postponing itself from week to week, with the tacit +consent of both parties; an interview dreaded by Joan perhaps even less +than by her father.</p> + +<p>They were returning one night from one of their most successful +evenings; Joan as usual on the front seat beside the chauffeur, where +she might enjoy the rush of the cool night air upon her face, and hear +as little as possible of the billing and cooing of the honeymooners in +the tonneau behind. There seemed more of this than usual, little +giggling exclamations and audible embraces which made the girl wince and +the chauffeur grin surreptitiously.</p> + +<p>"Really, Father!" protested Joan over her shoulder. There was something +physically nauseating to her in those amorous echoes from the tonneau. +No wonder servants laughed! It made of love a travesty and a mocking.</p> + +<p>She was glad when they reached home. The Major stepped out gallantly to +assist the ladies, but miscalculated his impetus, and after a series of +complicated maneuvers brought up seated upon the curbstone. The +chauffeur burst into an uncontrollable guffaw, in which his mistress +heartily joined.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you Dick Fizz!" she laughed, wiping her eyes. "I knew it would get +you yet. <i>Look</i> at your funny papa, dearie! Lit up like a +Christmas-tree!"</p> + +<p>The Major murmured something reprovingly about the duties of +hospitality, which he found some difficulty in pronouncing; but once +upon his feet, he gave an arm to each of them and managed the steps +without further mishap.</p> + +<p>In the hall Joan, who had not laughed, said to her step-mother in a low +voice, "Is he—drunk?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, not enough to hurt," replied the lady, still laughing. It occurred +to Joan that she herself was a little flushed and expansive. "I can +handle him, all right. Don't you worry! I always know a gentleman by the +way he carries his liquor."</p> + +<p>"Do you?" said Joan.</p> + +<p>"Sure thing! And Major's a perfect gentleman always. Don't you fret."</p> + +<p>Joan mounted quietly to her room, and undressed in the dark. She did not +want to see her face in the mirror, afraid of the disgust, the loathing, +that must be reflected there—Her father—drunk! The man to whom her +mother had given her love and her life, tipsily furnishing amusement for +a woman who judged gentlemen by the way they carried their liquor!...</p> + +<p>She recalled one other time when she had seen her father in his present +condition. She remembered her mother's stricken, tragic face as she +hurried him out of sight, explaining tremulously, "Daddy's ill, darling. +No games with Daddy to-night—he's ill."</p> + +<p>"But he wants to play! Look, mamma, he <i>wants</i> to play!" the small Joan +had insisted, to no avail.</p> + +<p>And when this strangely interesting Daddy was safe in bed, with Ellen +Neal mounting guard, Joan had been hurried out to the nearest church +(which happened to be a Catholic one, for Mary's was a casual sort of +religion that boasted neither creed nor prejudice); and there, before a +statue where little lamps burned, the child had prayed hard, as she was +bid, that her father might never be ill in just that way again.</p> + +<p>"God may listen to you, even if He's tired of listening to me!" the +mother had whispered, desperately.</p> + +<p>It was because God had listened that Joan was sent later to a Catholic +convent. Mary Darcy's was not the nature to forget favors; and it +occurred to her that there might be worse protectors for a girl who must +one day be motherless than Our Lady of Sorrows. Not every faith is +strong enough to go through life without some creed to cling to. Mary +had offered her child what she could.</p> + +<p>Lying there in the darkness, Joan understood. She wished that she might +have been able to take what her mother offered. She yearned for the +anodyne of simple, unquestioning prayer, for the mesmeric comfort that +comes to the believing from the slipping of rosary beads between the +fingers; above all, for the right to kneel unrecognized in a quiet +confessional and learn from some priest wiser than she in the ways of +men where her duty lay and how she was to follow it. The confessional is +perhaps the secret of the hold the oldest of Christian churches keeps +upon a world which would seem to have outgrown it. That is a +self-reliant nature indeed which does not sometimes feel the need of +guidance at once human and detached.</p> + +<p>But Joan's creed and confessional alike were contained in her troubled +young head; and where a happier woman would have wept and said her +prayers, she set herself sternly to the task of thinking. It seemed to +her that throughout the past weeks she had been shirking an issue, +deliberately drugging her wits with anything that came to hand. Now she +faced conditions squarely. There must be no more drifting.</p> + +<p>She focused an unsparing vision upon her father. Already there were +changes apparent in him, signs of deterioration not entirely physical. +His features seemed slightly blurred from their fine chiseling, there +was a relaxed look about the lips and chin, about the very poise of his +figure. He had lost a little of that indefinable something which gave +him distinction, even in the days when the women of his family tried in +vain to keep him pressed and unspotted. Prosperity was not going to be +good for Richard Darcy.</p> + +<p>Joan pronounced ruthless judgment upon her father:</p> + +<p>"He's done for!"</p> + +<p>And, as Ellen had warned her, it was none of her business.... What then +was her business? Clearly, to keep from being "done for" herself.</p> + +<p>She saw quite clearly that she had been in danger of this. There was +something curiously enervating about the atmosphere of her step-mother's +house, a <i>laissez-faire</i> that was almost—the girl sought for the word +and decided upon "lascivious." Luxury, ease, pleasure—these were the +ends for which her step-mother strove—or rather accomplished without +undue striving, an ability to which the girl gave full due. She knew +that it must take more than mere money to keep so elaborate a household +running without apparent effort. The servants were efficient and +unobtrusive, the accounts scrupulously kept, every nook and cranny clean +and in order. Even Ellen Neal, who knew whereof she spoke, admitted that +the ex-Mrs. Calloway was a housekeeper of parts. But...</p> + +<p>Joan tried conscientiously to fathom the meaning of her "but." She +decided that the house was too like its mistress—over-bathed, +over-perfumed and dressed and manicured—to be quite nice. The windows +were too fluffy with lace, the drawing-room too pretty and satiny, the +library too red. ("Why is it," she had written to Stefan Nikolai, "that +people who never open a book invariably have a red library?")</p> + +<p>A fantastic thought came to her. She wondered whether those strange +houses which are sometimes whispered of even among convent girls, those +palaces of horror where women's bodies are bought and sold, might not +perhaps resemble this home to which her father had brought her ...</p> + +<p>Then she smiled at herself. Vulgar, her step-mother might be; hopelessly +underbred; doubtless in some previous manifestations a shop-girl, a +dressmaker; possibly one of those anomalous beings known in race-towns +as "race-horse women." But she was unmistakably respectable. There was +not a picture on her walls, nor a novel on the shelves of the red +library, which was not, as she herself once remarked to Joan +complacently, "perfectly refined." The girl recalled her evident +uneasiness when sometimes at the dinner-table the talk had waxed a +little too free. She did her step-mother the justice to believe her a +quite decent woman.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the curious sense of enervation was due only to the heat of +midsummer in a Southern city. Now and then the elder Darcys spoke +vaguely of going away, only to decide that it was too much trouble. It +was easier to stay where they were. In a Kentucky July, one follows the +line of least resistance.</p> + +<p>Joan, like the others, slept late into the mornings, and had her coffee +in bed, or went down to the dining-room for it with a negligée over her +nightgown. (Her father had become quite reconciled to negligées, which +at first startled him, accustomed as he was to the neat morning ginghams +of his Mary.) Sometimes she found him departing reluctantly for the +mysterious place he called the Office. Later, people would arrive +connected with the rites of the toilet—the hair-dresser, the manicure, +the masseuse—a chatty person who performed on Effie May what she called +her "facial"; and other things. Cleopatra herself could have devoted no +more time to the care of her body than did the ex-Mrs. Calloway.</p> + +<p>"You've got it to do if you're risin' forty and like to eat," she +explained once to Joan, simply.</p> + +<p>After luncheon, which was brought on a tray—a large tray—to wherever +it happened to be convenient, the ladies once more resumed nightgowns, +if indeed they had ever discarded them, and napped and read until the +sun was low in the sky; when the house like the city woke into +animation, and they prepared to fare forth like fireflies to the evening +revel. Then there were automobile drives to little beer-gardens, where +they ate and drank and sat about among whitewashed tree-trunks, feeling +Bohemian; pleasant moonlight excursions up the Ohio in launches, with a +picnic provided which consisted largely of thermos-bottles; and the +Country Club, always the Country Club. Joan wondered what people had +managed to do with themselves in summer before the days of Country +Clubs.</p> + +<p>It was a life that somehow suggested the Orient, women of the harem +coming forth at sunset to bask on the roofs of the houses; a placid +existence; aimless, perhaps, but pleasant enough. Joan was puzzled to +find the harm in it. Yet that harm was there, she knew. The touch of +Puritanism in the girl told her that to live from day to day with no +duty but pleasure made of pleasure something akin to vice.... And often +in the midst of this harem life she remembered almost with passion that +out beyond her shuttered windows, beyond the clangor of trolley-cars and +the hum and clatter of the dirty streets, was summer—summer, the +loveliest of the year's phases; leaf-shadows on wimpling water, lush +meadows sparkling with the sunrise dew, green-gold glades of the wood +delicious with the smell of warm pine-needles; all the world at fullest +bloom, open like the heart of a rose, waiting.</p> + +<p>It was a sort of nostalgia that took her then for the country she had +never known, not Country Club country, nor the conscious, well-kept +wildness of the parks which give the old river town its only claim to +beauty—but simple wood and meadow and field, where homely folk live +close to the soil they till, concerned with crops and the breeding +season. It was this country her father had meant when he bragged about +Kentucky. It is this country which, deep down under the surface things, +means home to all people of Saxon blood, no matter how far astray they +wander....</p> + +<p>And as she lay there, as if her wistful thoughts had conjured it into +being, came a whisper of song from the leaves of the magnolia tree just +outside her window; a murmur that died away, and began again, and rose +and soared, melody on wings, above the clang of a trolley-car and the +honk of passing motors. It was a mocking-bird, that voice of the +Southern summer, singing in the glare of the arc-lamps, mistaking it +perhaps for moonlight.</p> + +<p>Joan tiptoed to the window and listened, an aching lump in her throat. +It was her first mocking-bird; she had not known they sang at night.</p> + +<p>"You lovely thing!" she whispered to it. "What are you doing in this +place?... And what am <i>I</i>?"</p> + +<p>Then and there she made her plans to get away.</p> + +<p>The thought frightened her a little. She had, despite the ups and downs +of her father's fortunes, led hitherto a very sheltered life. +Fortunately there was her mother's money, hers whenever she chose to ask +for it. She would not be quite penniless. But where to go?</p> + +<p>She thought first of the Misses Darcy, her father's cousins, who had +been most affectionate and kind, particularly since her father's +remarriage. Sometimes she wondered whether this was because they +sympathized with her, or (with a touch of her new cynicism) because they +did not. Effie May had been very generous to the Misses Darcy, remarking +once that she knew what it was to be poor herself. They came frequently +to dine at her lavish table; they appeared occasionally in <i>chic</i> black +costumes, as good as new, which Joan recognized as having served to +mourn the late Mr. Calloway; the limousine was often at their disposal; +and a limousine with a liveried chauffeur was a touch of distinction +hitherto lacking to the Darcy fortunes, even at their palmiest.</p> + +<p>Joan suddenly doubted whether her father's cousins would welcome her +under their roof at the risk of alienating that limousine. She did not +blame them—poor, anxious ladies to whom life had not been very kind. +She simply realized that they were of her father's blood, not her +mother's.</p> + +<p>Her mother's people she did not know. Mary Darcy had managed somehow in +her wanderings to loosen all the ties that bound her to her youth. It +was as if she had deliberately lost herself, hidden herself away with +husband and child from the loving eyes that are too quick to see.... It +was the sort of pride Richard Darcy was quite incapable of +understanding, though pride was a word often upon his lips. But Mary's +daughter understood. Never through her should the quiet tragedy of her +mother's life be revealed to those from whom her mother had chosen to +hide it.</p> + +<p>She wished that Stefan Nikolai were not a man; or that, being a man, he +had a home to which she might have invited herself. But he was a +confirmed wanderer, and Joan felt that a young lady companion, desirable +though she might be as a solace for his declining years, would +undoubtedly hamper his movements.</p> + +<p>It left only Ellen Neal to rely upon. Perhaps there would be enough +money to take a little flat somewhere, with Ellen Neal for servant and +chaperone. A bachelor maid, with a latch-key!—the prospect was rather +alluring. But not in Louisville. She could not leave her father's home +and set up an establishment of her own in the same town without creating +"talk," and, to Joan's training, "talk" was the one thing impossible.</p> + +<p>They would have to go away somewhere, she and Ellen. And study +something, she decided vaguely. Music, art, social service—whatever it +was people did study. Her eye began to kindle. She was the true child of +Richard Darcy, rolling stone by nature and profession; and to such, "the +grass is always greener down the road." New York, Boston, swam before +her dreamy vision; even London, Paris, Rome....</p> + +<p>She brought herself back to the ungrateful consideration of ways and +means. She feared the money would not run to much in the way of travel. +"A mere pittance," her father had once scornfully called it. But she +knew, or guessed, that all three of them had managed to live on the +income from this pittance during many a period when the Major's star was +not in the ascendant, and she thought that what had provided, however +scantily, for three might be made to provide well for herself and Ellen. +She wished that she had asked questions at the time her mother's will +was read to her. It had seemed so unimportant then. What was hers +belonged surely just as much to her father, guardian for the little +property until such time as she chose to ask him for it.</p> + +<p>Now that the time had come, Joan faced it with some dread. How could +they talk about money, she and he—about her mother's money? It seemed +indelicate, unfeeling, a desecration of sacred things. Nevertheless she +faced it. She solemnly promised herself that not another day should pass +without a complete understanding between herself and her father.</p> + +<p>Possibly she was the only one of Richard Darcy's creditors who ever +managed to put this promise into execution.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + + +<p>In the heat of the following afternoon, while Effie May dozed unaware +beneath an electric fan, with a box of chocolates convenient to her +drowsy hand, Joan slipped out of the house very quietly and went down +town. She had an odd feeling of exhilaration, as if she had already +escaped—from what, it would have been difficult to say.</p> + +<p>More than one glance of approval followed her slim figure as it flitted +through the sweltering streets, the dark and grimy corridors of the +office building which Richard Darcy had chosen to honor with his +patronage. This, thought patient men as she passed, was as a girl should +look on a July afternoon, all in cool white from her silver-buckled +pumps to the wide hat with a big lace butterfly perched airily upon it. +Surely it was fitting, they thought, that men should slave at their +desks through the endless summer days in order that visions such as this +might flit about the world in dainty idleness; and forthwith applied +gallant noses once more to the grindstone. In the South the idea of +economic independence for women will never be popular.</p> + +<p>Joan, under these friendly glances, was conscious of blossoming into +real prettinees. It was not the first time she had got this pleasant +little sensation out of so simple a matter as going down town. She +wondered whether in any other city of the world it was possible for a +girl to walk the streets alone, receiving from every man who passed—be +he gentleman, clerk, coal-heaver, or small, knowing news-boy—glances of +commendation which were neither impertinent, nor bold, nor even +personal, but simply, as it were expert; an appraisal which flattered +without offense. It was as if, at the sight of a pretty woman, the town +as one man lifted its glass to the toast:</p> + +<p>"The Ladies, God bless 'em!"</p> + +<p>It was this spirit, she thought, which had perhaps given Kentucky its +reputation for feminine pulchritude. To be a beauty is not difficult +where every one encourages the idea, where feminine charm is regarded as +in itself an end and a purpose, to be fortified by every means at the +command of art or nature.... Joan fluttered along with the best, +modestly unconscious of the eyes that paid her homage, but aware +nevertheless of her occasional reflection in plate-glass windows; and it +should be recorded that before she went to her father's office she made +the purchase of a stick of pink lip-pomade and a cake of solid +face-powder, with a little puff and mirror included. Why these articles +should have given her increased courage for an interview with her +parent, is difficult to state; but the fact remains that they did.</p> + +<p>She came presently to a doorway upon which was printed in large gold +lettering: RICHARD DARCY. LOANS AND INVESTMENTS. Joan was secretly +impressed. Perhaps the Office was not the mere figure of speech she had +sometimes fancied it.</p> + +<p>She knocked. No answer came. Listening, she heard inside the familiar +whirr of an electric fan mingling with a sound she could not for the +moment place—a buzzing as of many flies, but rising and falling at more +rhythmic intervals.</p> + +<p>She turned the knob. Within, drawn by an open window through which might +be glimpsed the broad Ohio rolling drowsily, stood a decrepit Morris +chair which Joan recognized as an old friend; wherein lay sprawled at +comfortable length the Major. At his elbow stood a bottle and a glass, +both empty. His handsome nose, forgetting for the moment all +acquaintance with the grindstone, was tilted at the angle of least +resistance, and from it issued the rhythmic buzzing that had puzzled his +child.</p> + +<p>"Daddy!" she said reluctantly. Somehow the Major asleep, with a plump +leg draped over the arm of his chair and his mouth slightly open, made +up in disarming appeal what he lost in impressiveness. He was like a +gray-haired little boy, tired out with playing.</p> + +<p>But, "Father!" said Joan more loudly. "Wake up, please. I've come to see +you on business."</p> + +<p>He opened his eyes with a jerk. "Eh? What's that, what's that, what's +that? Tut, tut! Must have dozed off. What's that?" The eyes tried to +close again, but he was firm with them, and presently recognized his +daughter. "That you, Dollykins? Well, well, well! Come down to pay Dad a +visit, eh? That's nice, that's nice!"</p> + +<p>Suddenly he got to his feet and brought her a chair, reaching at the +same time for his coat. Richard Darcy could not possibly have remained +in a lady's presence coatless, no matter what the temperature. Her +attention was caught by the garment into which he struggled, muttering +apologies the while.</p> + +<p>"Why, Dad," she cried, "<i>what</i> are you putting on?"</p> + +<p>It was not the immaculate gray flannel in which he had started that +morning for the marts of commerce, but a thread-bare, shapeless, densely +spotted garment which Joan recognized with a pang.</p> + +<p>"Your old second-best!" she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>Her father grinned a little sheepishly. "Why—why yes, I keep it here as +an office coat, to save the others, you see. I'm sort of used to it," he +added explanatorily. "It seems to fit into my curves. The new ones +don't. One is supposed to fit into theirs!"</p> + +<p>Joan patted the sleeve of the second-best affectionately. Her eyes were +moist. She felt nearer to her father than she had for weeks. He had kept +the old chair out of their home equipment; he had kept the old coat. Was +he after all not so obliviously content as he seemed in his fine new +surroundings? Did he remember, too, and was he homesick as herself for +the shabby days when he and she and her mother had made a little world +of their own, happy in spite of everything?</p> + +<p>She said with a smile, "You'd better not let Effie May catch you wearing +such a garment!"</p> + +<p>"Heaven forbid!" he exclaimed. "I may confess that it was with some +difficulty I rescued this coat from the ashman, to whom your mother had +given it."</p> + +<p>But his use of the phrase, "your mother," hardened Joan out of her +momentary tenderness. Invariably he spoke of Effie May to her as "your +mother," and of her real mother only as "Mary." The girl was too young +to realize that this may have been because the name meant things to him +which the phrase never would. Mary was something more to Richard Darcy +than Joan's mother....</p> + +<p>"I have come to talk to you," said Joan, "about business, Father."</p> + +<p>"Business?" The Major's eyebrows lifted. Business meant money, and the +ladies of his family never cared to talk about money! remarked those +eyebrows. Though, to be sure, they sometimes found themselves under the +necessity of asking for it—His hand went instinctively to his pocket.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you are out of pin-money?" he interpreted. "Stupid of me not +to have realized it, Dollykin, though I sent you rather a good deal to +the convent, you remember?" He brought his hand out, filled with silver. +"There! Spend it 'not wisely but too well'—not that one need give any +girl advice on that subject! Dear, dear, how women can make the money +fly!" humorously sighed the Major (whose debts had probably been paid by +women ever since he had been old enough to make them).</p> + +<p>"I should like a chance," said Joan soberly, "to make the money fly, +Father. My money, you know."</p> + +<p>He stared at her, really bewildered.</p> + +<p>She refreshed his memory, flushing. "The money Mother left, with you as +guardian—that I was to have whenever I asked—"</p> + +<p>"Not that she ever expected such a contingency to arrive!" commented the +Major with a sudden accession of stiffness. "You are not of age yet, my +child."</p> + +<p>"Was there any provision in her will about my being of age?"</p> + +<p>"No," he admitted. "Owing to what was of course purely a technical +error, I think there was not. My poor Mary was quite unaccustomed to the +terminology of wills, naturally, and as she and a servant drew it up +between them, you may imagine—" he shrugged indulgently.</p> + +<p>Joan moistened her lips. She was finding the interview even more +difficult than she had imagined. Her father's manner managed to put her +somehow in the wrong. But she held to her purpose.</p> + +<p>"I do not think it was an error, Father. Mother wasn't the sort who says +things she doesn't mean. I believe she foresaw that—that something +might occur which would make me wish to be independent, even if I was +not of age. She could trust my judgment a little. She knew that I'd +never dream of asking for her property unless I had a good reason—I +have a good reason now, Father—I want to be independent." Her voice +trailed off miserably. What she really wanted was to put her arms about +his neck and have a good cry.</p> + +<p>Unconsciously the Major discouraged the impulse. "What is this nonsense +about independence?" he demanded. "My dear Joan, you sound like a New +Woman!" On his lips the phrase was a scathing denunciation.</p> + +<p>Joan explained faintly that she wanted to go away somewhere, to live....</p> + +<p>The Major was honestly aghast. "Leave your father's roof?" he cried +incredulously. "My child! What is this folly? Never with Richard Darcy's +consent shall a daughter of his leave her father's roof except for the +roof of her lawful husband." (In moments of emotion, the Major was +always liable to these attacks of circumlocution.)</p> + +<p>Joan pointed out to him, still faintly but determinedly, that it was not +her <i>father's</i> roof she wished to leave....</p> + +<p>Even under his armor of complacency this shot told. He winced. "Have you +been made to feel that? Has my wife ever caused you to believe that you +were an unwelcome member of our household?" he demanded sharply, in a +voice that boded ill for the present Mrs. Darcy if such were the case.</p> + +<p>"No, Father! I shall never give her the chance to make me feel +unwelcome. That is why I want my mother's money."</p> + +<p>The Major toyed with a pen, and seemed to be thinking. "I am not at all +sure," he said presently, "that the will Mary left was legal, my dear; +whether it would stand in the courts—"</p> + +<p>"What does that matter?" interrupted Joan, "when you and I know what +Mother meant?" Something impelled her to add, "And when Ellen Neal +knows, too?"</p> + +<p>The Major looked quickly at her, and looked away. "Perhaps you are not +aware that regardless of any will whatsoever the law entitles me to +one-third of my wife's estate?"</p> + +<p>Joan flushed with an embarrassment that was more for him than for +herself. "You're welcome to it, Daddy; you're perfectly welcome to it, +of course! It isn't that I want to take anything away from <i>you</i>. +It's—oh, won't you <i>please</i> understand, and not be hurt with me?" she +implored. "I only want to know how much there is, how much money I can +count on getting every month to live on. Just income, you know. I +wouldn't think of touching the—principal, don't you call it?"</p> + +<p>Richard Darcy rose abruptly and went to the window. It was a fine view +that spread before him—a soothing, mellifluous landscape of golden +river and hazy blue Indiana hills. Indiana, as he sometimes remarked, +was delightful as a background though undesirable as a dwelling-place. +He said so now. He had taken this office entirely for its view, he +informed his daughter. The Major patronized Nature extensively, and +believed that all gentlemen should do so; especially Kentucky gentlemen, +to whom Nature has been so particularly lavish.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Joan waited. He recalled that her mother used to have the same +habit of silent waiting. Some minds seem incapable of pleasant +digression.</p> + +<p>He sighed, and resumed the subject under discussion. His manner had +changed somewhat, however. He spoke in the persuasive, frank, +"he's-a-good-fellow-and-'twill-all-be-well" tones which he reserved for +directors' boards, stockholders' meetings, and like courts of last +resort, when things unpleasant had to be told and he was the one to tell +them. It should be said in all justice that he rarely side-stepped these +meetings, as he might have done, and allowed the unpleasantnesses to +disclose themselves through others. Nobody could say that Richard Darcy +was a coward.</p> + +<p>"Well, about this little business affair of ours, Dollykins—Of course +the property was never large, though properly invested it might have +brought us in a decent income instead of the trifle Mary was content +with. The merest pittance I assure you, the merest pittance!"</p> + +<p>Joan nodded. She had heard before about the mereness of the pittance.</p> + +<p>"Often during my wife's lifetime I took occasion to point this out to +her. The question of securities and investments being one to which I +have devoted the greater part of my business career, I think I may say +without undue vanity that I am qualified to give advice on such matters! +But Mary had a certain sentimental reluctance about changing investments +which her father had made for her, and sentiment is a thing which I am +always able to respect."</p> + +<p>("Good for mother!" said Joan to herself.)</p> + +<p>"However, after her death—" he paused to pay his Mary the tribute of a +sincere though dramatic sigh—"I began at once to look about for a means +of providing my little girl with more affluence than had hitherto been +at my disposal. The best," he smiled, patting her hand, "is none too +good for my Dollykins! And an opportunity shortly presented itself, a +quite exceptional opportunity, not only of increasing our income +materially, but of assisting to develop the resources of my native +commonwealth." He expanded suddenly with public spirit. "What a State! +Fortunes have been made here, but nothing compared with the fortunes +which shall be made. People have dared to call us a 'pauper +State'—'pauper,' if you please!—with wealth at our command, untouched, +unguessed resources lying just beneath the surface of this beautiful +soil, which would make Aladdin's cave look like—like—"</p> + +<p>"Thirty cents," supplied Joan, in an anxious effort to get to the point. +"I know, Father!—but what did you buy with the money?"</p> + +<p>"Oil-fields!" he said largely. "Oil-fields! Or, to be exact, stock in a +company formed for the purpose of purchasing oil-fields, in which by +good chance I happened to be let in on the ground floor (as we say in +commercial parlance, Dollykins. It is not an expression I should care to +hear you use.) You are the part possessor of something like one thousand +acres of virgin Kentucky soil!" He leaned back in his chair and beamed +on her.</p> + +<p>"Am I?" said Joan dubiously. "It sounds promising."</p> + +<p>Something of her father's elation disappeared in a sigh. "Promising, +yes!—but so far only promising. Oil has been struck all about us, but +none as yet on our holdings. I have by no means given up hope, of +course." (Richard Darcy had never given up hope in any of his lost +causes.) "But I must confess that I have been disappointed. Worse than +disappointed. For a while I was—well, really, desperate!" He smiled +deprecatingly.</p> + +<p>The smile did not for the moment touch Joan's heart; but it told her the +truth she had dreaded. "Father! You mean you have <i>lost</i> the +money?—There's no income left?"</p> + +<p>"Income? Alas, no. And even the principal—Still, the land is there, one +thousand acres of it, and that cannot escape!" he added, brightening. +"There were times when I thought of going to live on the land. Though my +experience of agriculture has been practically nil, many of our +ancestors were planters and stock-breeders, and, as you know, I am a +firm believer in the power of heredity. However, I was credibly informed +that the property would not lend itself to agriculture. I was at my +wit's end. Fancy the position!" (The Major was beginning rather to enjoy +his woe in the retrospect.) "Here was I not as yet firmly established on +my feet (as we say in business parlance); deprived alike of helpmate and +companion, with my child at an expensive boarding-school where I had +promised my dead wife she should remain until the completion of her +education—and I without a dollar I could call my own! Frightful! There +were certain obligations to tradespeople as well.... I am sure I do not +know how for a while Ellen Neal managed to provide us with necessities!" +(Joan thought grimly that she knew how.) "It became necessary +to—ah!—realize on my possessions. First the silver went—I daresay you +have wondered what has become of our family silver, my child? It was +sacrificed to keep a roof over your head. Then the more valuable pieces +of furniture—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't!" groaned the girl in a sort of angry pity, "Why didn't you +tell me? Oh, <i>poor</i> father!"</p> + +<p>"You may well say, 'poor father.' It was for you I suffered most, for +you I was afraid. A man alone can always manage to subsist in some +fashion, but a man with a helpless female dependent on him—! Thank +heaven," he said earnestly, "you can never know what it is to be a +father! I thought constantly, 'What a home to bring a young lady into! +What a situation for my child!' I may confess that I prayed—no +gentleman need be ashamed to pray when he is in distress. And then like +light in darkness the answer came to me. At whatever cost to myself, +whatever sacrifice, I must provide comfort for Joan, a home suitable for +the reception of a young gentlewoman. There was nothing left to offer +except—myself. Therefore—"</p> + +<p>His face shone with a noble sadness, and he waited for the generosity of +his sacrifice to sink in.</p> + +<p>"You mean," said Joan slowly, "that it was for my sake you married Mrs. +Calloway!"</p> + +<p>He bowed assent. "Why else? She is an excellent woman, a kind and +excellent and devoted woman. But under happier circumstances, a man of +my position, my traditions, my—shall I say fastidiousness?—" He +shrugged, and allowed the ungallant suggestion to complete itself +without words.</p> + +<p>"I think," said Joan quietly, "we'd better not say 'fastidiousness.'"</p> + +<p>She was struggling, struggling so hard that her hands were clenched, to +do justice to her father. Had she misjudged him? Was his marriage after +all not the horrid thing she had thought it, but an honest effort to +atone to the child he had beggared? Something within her cried "No!" Her +father had sacrificed nothing in the marriage. He had simply yielded, +without a struggle, to the lure of the flesh-pots. Worse than this, the +girl recalled honeymooning incidents that often made her shudder with +mental nausea; certain billing and cooing which she had not always been +able to avoid. It was not only the flesh-pots that had lured him....</p> + +<p>"Cad!" she cried to herself fiercely. "Cad and liar!" And the terrible +thing was that he did not seem to know he was being a cad and a liar.</p> + +<p>Aloud she said, "And what did Mrs. Calloway get out of the bargain?"</p> + +<p>The Major stared at her, astounded. It was a question so absurd that he +literally could not answer it. Quite unconsciously his eyes strayed +beyond her after a moment to a mirror, as if for reassurance.</p> + +<p>Joan burst out laughing. The laughter was so palpably close to tears +that her father forgave it, and held out his arms to her. "There, there, +my poor child! You're overwrought," he murmured. "Come to Daddy!"</p> + +<p>She had lost all desire to weep on his shoulder now, however, and +Richard Darcy shrank from the look she gave him, as a more innocent man +than he might have shrunk; so level it was, so keen and without mercy. +She saw her father in that moment not only as cad and liar, but as +something very close to a thief. As surely as if she had been told in +words, she knew why her mother, after fighting for years to keep her bit +of property safe for her child, had at the last left it to the +guardianship of her husband. It was to show him she trusted him, to put +him on honor, as it were; to bolster up his waning self-respect by this +final supreme act of faith in him. And he had betrayed her.</p> + +<p>Joan shrugged, and turned to go. Her head hung in shame, and Richard +Darcy knew that the shame was not for herself. What passed through her +brain then was for the moment clear to him, as it is sometimes with +people of one blood.</p> + +<p>"I dare say," he said very low with a sort of dreadful questioning, +"that the law might—might hold me responsible as guardian of your +property, my daughter. If you cared to—if you wished to—make an issue +of it?"</p> + +<p>"What good would that do" she replied brutally. "The money's gone, isn't +it?"</p> + +<p>Then, glancing back, she surprised in his face that look she had almost +forgotten—the frightened, baffled, anxious expression which she +associated with the days when, as Ellen Neal put it, "the Indians were +after him."</p> + +<p>Instantly the reaction came. It was she he feared now, not +"Indians"—she, his own little girl, Joan!</p> + +<p>She ran and put her arms around him tightly, protectingly. "Nonsense!" +she cried, her voice beautiful with the instinct of all the mothers who +had made her. "The law'll never know a thing about it. What has the old +law got to do with you and me? You've done the best you could, Daddy, +I'm sure."</p> + +<p>Richard Darcy answered humbly, like a repentant child, "I have, +daughter, truly I have. I'm sorry...."</p> + +<p>Later, as she walked wearily homeward through streets that no longer +exhilarated her, no bachelor-maid now with a latch-key, nor yet an +independent young traveler in foreign lands, but merely a poor relation +dependent on the bounty of a step-mother, Joan made for herself a new +beatitude:</p> + +<p>"Blessed are the weak," she thought stoically, "for they have got to be +taken care of."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + + +<p>The two rooms in which Ellen Neal had established herself were on the +second floor of a house that had gone some decades since into a state of +senile decrepitude. But such was the fashion of building in its day that +it showed no particular signs of its approaching end beyond a slight +tilt to leeward and the rather eczematic effect of its stuccoed brick +facade. A high-waisted door surmounted by a fine fan-light and supported +by slender columns which had once been white led into a square panelled +hall from which curved a staircase of exquisite proportions. These +things in a city of larger growth and greater sophistication would have +marked the house as the natural abode of artists and their ilk; but in +Louisville, where art is yet chiefly a thing to be taken in courses by +the elect, it let itself out in rooms for light housekeeping and other +humble purposes. The slender columns were defaced by such signs +as, "Feather Cleaning and Artificial Flowers,"—"Furniture +Upholstered,"—"Plain Dressmaking," etc.</p> + +<p>The neighborhood, except for this one decrepit mansion standing well in +from the sidewalk with an ancient sycamore for company, had long since +forgotten its former claims to fashion; but it was still respectable. +Trust Ellen Neal for that! She had the same flair for respectability as +had the Misses Darcy for gentility. No doubtful character, whether in +house or individual, could fail to yield up its weakness to the +corrosive rectitude of Miss Neal's shrewd eye.</p> + +<p>Joan liked to come to this house, not only because Ellen and the +familiar home furniture were there, but because it carried her romantic +fancy back into the Louisville her father sometimes talked about, the +old South with all its lost glamour of gallantry and derring-do. "<i>Les +belles dames du temps jadis</i>" was a phrase that invariably came to her +mind as she entered the graceful, defaced portal. Nearby stood a +street-pump where an actress who was one day to make the charm of +American women world-famous, used to come each morning to draw water, in +her shabby little slippers with a rope of hair over each shoulder—a +lovely young Rebekah at the well. Around the corner stood another old +mansion, now debased to commercial uses, in front of which the +townspeople used to gather daily at a certain hour to watch the languid +progress from door to carriage of a beauty so widely heralded that her +name and her many love-affairs have become history. Here and there in a +neglected fence-corner a ragged rose-bush, or a clump of larkspur +bravely in bloom, spoke to a few observers, such as Joan, of gardens +which had been the lovely setting of lovely ladies long since dead and +dust.</p> + +<p>Twilight was the hour for that neighborhood. Joan liked to fancy Ellen's +house as the darkness fell, with candle-light streaming from the +wide-flung windows, and glimpses within of bells in crinoline and beaux +in tight wrinkled trousers, dancing a quadrille. Among them moved negro +servitors with trays of frosted silver cups, and syllabub (though she +had no slightest notion of what syllabub might be), and black cake, and +small, pricked, beaten biscuit with ham in their insides. And there +would be carriages stopping constantly at the door, to emit more belles +and gallants, girls hoop-skirted and beshawled, who ran lightly up the +curve of the long staircase, with apologies to the couples they +disturbed in passing....</p> + +<p>Always the house brought such fancies to Joan, and so clearly that she +sometimes wondered whether they were less fancies than race-memories, +souvenirs of Darcys who might have lived and made merry there in the +halcyon days when the old gray river-town was at its zenith; truly, as +it boasted, the Gateway to the South, stopping-place for all travelers +on these floating palaces which no longer ply their leisurely journeys +down the Ohio and the Mississippi to the Gulf.</p> + +<p>Once she had questioned her father about it. "No, that's not one of our +houses, I think," he replied interestedly. "Though it might have been. +Your ancestors were very fond of change, Dollykins—as I am myself. We +seem to have lived in half the houses in Louisville, at one time or +another. But that one has been shabby and tumbledown ever since I can +remember. In my boyhood it was a cheap boarding-house, for actors and +people of that sort, I believe. I knew no one who lived there."</p> + +<p>Joan was disappointed. She would have liked to claim the old mansion as +a relative.</p> + +<p>As she went wearily homeward from her disastrous interview with her +father, Joan suddenly bethought herself of this house, and of Ellen. She +was in no mood just then for the cheerful vulgarities of her +step-mother. On the impulse, she went into the nearest drug-store and +telephoned that she would not be home that night for dinner.</p> + +<p>"Ellen shall cook me some pancakes, and I will help her," she decided, +comforted by the idea. It must be remembered that Joan was only +nineteen.</p> + +<p>Inhabitants in suspenders and dressing-sacks, seeking air on the +doorstep, stared at the girl inquisitively as she entered; but once +within the dimness of the panelled hall she was able to forget these +anachronisms. The quaint elegance of an earlier day was proof against +even Expert Feather-curling, and Upholstery Done Here.</p> + +<p>From above came a sudden tuneless whistling, and then a thump on a door +and a man's voice calling, "Say, Mrs. Neal! Here's a bushel of fine +assorted socks for you, and if you can get enough out of the lot to keep +my feet off the cauld, cauld ground till pay-day, I'll be yours truly."</p> + +<p>She heard Ellen's voice replying in more muffled tones, "All right, sir, +just dump 'em in the door, will you? My hands are in the dough."</p> + +<p>Joan was amused to hear Ellen Neal called "Mrs."—she who was so +unmistakably and truculently a spinster; also she was surprised at the +politeness of her "sir" in response, for Ellen was not given to the +small amenities of social intercourse. The Major himself was rarely +"sir" to Ellen.</p> + +<p>The whistling resumed itself, coming rapidly nearer; and around the +curve of the stairs, which he took two at a time, bounded a young man, +who brought himself and his whistling to a full stop just in time to +avoid carrying Joan with him in his downward course.</p> + +<p>"Whew!—just missed you!" he exclaimed aghast. "You startled me. For a +minute I thought you were a ghost!"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I am," murmured Joan, and demurely passed on up the stairs.</p> + +<p>He turned and stared after the white ascending figure. She was aware of +his eyes following her. Suddenly he chuckled, "I knew I'd find you +again. And I found the quotation, too! 'Richard the Second,' by William +Shakespeare."</p> + +<p>Joan glanced over her shoulder. "I do not know what you are talking +about," she said frigidly, "and I do not know you from Adam!" She had +brought the impertinence upon herself, but she felt quite able to handle +it—particularly with Ellen Neal just a few steps away.</p> + +<p>Even as she spoke, however, she was aware that she did know this young +man. Something in his voice, in his awkward, deferential manner, brought +back to her memory the too-sympathetic drummer on the train. She lifted +her eyes from his necktie to his face, remembering past regrets. His +ears stuck out.</p> + +<p>"Like the Yellow Kid's!" she thought disgustedly.</p> + +<p>There is nothing in the least romantic about a man whose ears stick out. +He might as well be fat....</p> + +<p>"'Sad stories of the death of kings,'" he was explaining eagerly. "I +looked it up myself. Sort of sounded like Shakespeare."</p> + +<p>"Oh! I thought it was 'Alice in Wonderland'!" Joan was surprised into +speech.</p> + +<p>"That's a new one on me—'Alice in Wonderland,'"—commented the young +man. "Is it good stuff?"</p> + +<p>"You've never read 'Alice in Wonderland'? What a queer childhood you +must have had!"</p> + +<p>"Didn't have any," he replied, smiling up at her. Then he removed the +smile, made a respectful little bow, and went on out the door.</p> + +<p>Joan found that she was blushing, hotly; and no wonder. She was shocked +by herself. She, one of Sister Mary Agnes's best exemplars of decorum, +had deliberately started and continued a conversation with a strange +young man met by chance on the dark stairway of a house where assuredly +gentlemen did not live. ("Unless very poor gentlemen," she amended; for, +ears or not, he seemed somehow to belong in the category of gentlehood.) +Nor had she even terminated the conversation. It was he who had done +that. He had shown more sense of the fitness of things than had she, +Joan Darcy!</p> + +<p>It was all the effect of the hospitable old hall, Joan decided. The +house, like the roof of a friend, had introduced them. But what was he +doing in such a house? It was not the sort of abode that would appeal, +she fancied, to necktie drummers.</p> + +<p>She opened Ellen's door without knocking. "Hello, there! Who's that I +met on the stairs, and why does he call you 'Mrs.,' you giddy old +fraud?"</p> + +<p>A spoon dropped to the floor with a clatter as Ellen turned, beaming. +"Land sakes! You might as well kill a person as scare her to death," she +complained, far too pleased to admit it. "What you doin' down town this +time o' day, all dressed up like lady-come-to-see? What do you want, +eh?"</p> + +<p>"Pancakes," explained Joan, ripping off her long gloves. "I'm going to +stay to supper, Nellen, so get me an apron and let's begin."</p> + +<p>Ellen's smile widened. "Pancakes! On a hot night like this?"</p> + +<p>Joan nodded. "Um-humm! And lemonade," she said, "and anything else you +can think of that's indigestible. Got any pickles?"</p> + +<p>"What would a lone woman be doin' keepin' house without pickles?" +replied Ellen scornfully, producing them. "And there's a batch of +cinnamon rolls in the oven this minute, just as if I was expectin' you."</p> + +<p>With a sigh of content, the girl reached down a yellow crockery bowl out +of the cupboard—she was on quite intimate terms with Ellen's +cupboard—and tying a gingham apron about her neck, proceeded to stir +batter. It was the same crockery bowl, and perhaps the same gingham +apron, in which she had stirred batter so long ago that she had been +obliged to stand on a footstool in order to reach the kitchen-table. +There was something substantial and fixed and unchangeable about Ellen +Neal and her possessions, something that spelled home, though it was +only home for other people.</p> + +<p>"But you haven't distracted my mind," said Joan judicially, "from the +fact that a young man of your acquaintance calls you 'Mrs.' without +correction. You haven't eloped or anything lately?"</p> + +<p>Ellen Neal bridled. "How you do go on, Joan! It makes it look better for +a lone woman to be livin' by herself if she's called 'Mrs.' Men ain't so +apt to get fresh with her."</p> + +<p>"No?" murmured Joan. She gazed at Ellen's gaunt unloveliness with +twinkling eyes. "Don't tell me men have been getting fresh with you, +Nellen!"</p> + +<p>The other's jaw snapped. "They have not, and they better not try it."</p> + +<p>"Don't you think it's rather a risk darning their socks, then?" murmured +the girl wickedly. "It might give them false ideas."</p> + +<p>"I only do it for one of 'em, and he pays me good. Anything's proper so +long as you get paid for it."</p> + +<p>Joan laughed aloud. "Why, Mrs. Neal, Mrs. Neal, you shock me! What a +perilous idea!"</p> + +<p>"You're awful smart, guyin' me, but I'd be ashamed to think the kind of +thoughts you're thinkin' now," said Ellen Neal, unsmiling. "And you a +spinster yourself! Thoughts are as bad as deeds, any day—worse, 'cause +they come easier. That's one thing I've noticed about you lately, Joan. +You seem to know about things that ain't ladylike, somehow. Something's +happened to you, child. You ain't the nice little girl you used to be."</p> + +<p>"No," admitted Joan, "I'm not. And the world's not the nice little world +it used to be, either." She went over and laid her head on her friend's +bony shoulder. "Don't scold me to-day, dear. You're right, but—Oh, +Nellen, father's lost our money! And there's nothing in the world I can +call my own. Just absolutely nothing!"</p> + +<p>A silence fell. "So," said the old woman. "You've found out, at last, +have you? I've wondered how long it would take. And now what you goin' +to do about it?" she demanded suddenly. "Are you goin' to law?"</p> + +<p>Joan shook her head. "You know what Mother would say to that."</p> + +<p>Ellen sighed. "I suppose she wouldn't hear to it." It was a curious fact +that when these two spoke of Mary Darcy, they always spoke as if she +were still alive, and near them. "Anyway, you can't squeeze blood out of +a turnip—though I must say I'd like to see <i>somethin'</i> squeezed out of +them kind of turnips, if it's only insides!" she added quite +blood-thirstily. "Oh deary me, deary me! How often I've begged your ma +to sneak what there was left out of his reach and put it away where I +keep mine."</p> + +<p>"Where's that, Nellen?"</p> + +<p>"In an old stockin'-fut under my bedtick, where you can bet no man on +earth ever laid eyes on it, or ever will!"</p> + +<p>The smell of scorching bread suddenly filled the room. "Land sakes, my +cinnamon-rolls! And I'd promised that boy to save him some for +breakfast."</p> + +<p>"Breakfast?" exclaimed Joan, glad enough of a diversion from discussing +her undiscussable father. "You mean to tell me you're not only keeping +your young man darned, but breakfasted? Nellen, I'm positively jealous!"</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't be if you could see him eat," said the other seriously. +"Acts like he ain't had enough food to fill him sence he was born. He +was gettin' all his meals out to a restaurant before I come, a place he +calls 'The Sign of the Dirty Spoon.' Jokin', I suppose—he's a great one +for jokes. But he looked so skinny, and was always takin' something for +dyspepsy, so I told him I'd give him a good breakfast anyway, just to +start the day on. Say, Joan, you ought to see him put it away! He says +once, 'I 'spose this is what you call home-cookin', ain't it?' 'Land, +sakes,' says I, 'don't you know home-cookin' when you see it?' 'I ain't +never seen it before!' he says, laughing."</p> + +<p>While she talked Ellen was bustling capably about, laying a cloth, +getting out dishes, dropping Joan's batter into a sizzling saucepan, +from whence arose dense, pleasing vapors.</p> + +<p>"Here, Joan, mix some cinnamon in that sugar, 'less you'd ruther have +molasses on 'em. You ought to see the room he's got. Nothin' but books, +all over the tables, piled up on the floor, even on the window-sills—"</p> + +<p>"Books?" said Joan, pricking up an ear. She had not imagined the +wide-eared young man in his dapper clothes a student.</p> + +<p>"Whatever people want all them books around for I can't see," said +Ellen. "Dust collectors, I call 'em; but he says they're his college +career. Always will have his joke! And the dirt—! He had a colored +woman in to do for him before I come, and guess what she used to do with +her dust?" She paused dramatically, arms akimbo.</p> + +<p>Joan admitted her imagination unequal to the task.</p> + +<p>"Swept it under the bed and left it there! Land!" said Ellen Neal, "how +I do hate a nigger! You can bet I got that place to rights in a jiffy."</p> + +<p>"I can indeed," murmured Joan, "and I can also bet he couldn't find a +thing belonging to him for a week afterwards."</p> + +<p>Ellen grinned. "You've the truth of it. There wasn't a morning for about +a week but what he'd thump on the floor and yell down the chimney, 'Mrs. +Neal, <i>oh</i>, Mrs. Neal! For heaven's sake where is my blue necktie?' or, +'In the name of Jehoshaphat, what have you done with my other pair of +pants?' It kind of reminded me of your pa," she said, sighing. "I been +lookin' after him ever sence. There now, ain't you goin' to eat your +pancakes now you've got 'em?"</p> + +<p>Joan drew up her chair to the oil-cloth covered table, and, despite the +heat and her troubles, made such a meal as she had not eaten for weeks +at her step-mother's elaborate board. Ellen sat opposite her, with no +servant-and-mistress nonsense to complicate the pleasure of hospitality. +Sometimes the old woman waited on Joan, and sometimes Joan waited on +Ellen, all in a friendly democracy that would have caused Major Darcy's +hair to rise on end. It had been his conscientious effort for years to +keep Ellen Neal "in her place." The difficulty was in the ups and downs +of the Darcy ménage to know just what might be considered Ellen's place.</p> + +<p>Not troubling themselves with any such niceties of status, the two ate +their pancakes and drank their lemonade and otherwise courted +indigestion contentedly, meanwhile chatting about the young man from +upstairs, who for some reason began to appeal to Joan's imagination. His +name, it appeared, was Archibald Blair.</p> + +<p>"Archibald Blair! Nellen, how romantic! Like an English novel. Young +Lord Toodledeboots ruined at Monte Carlo, hiding his poverty and a +broken heart in lodgings. I suppose these might be called lodgings? If +only his ears had been made to fit him!"</p> + +<p>She no longer thought of him as a necktie drummer. The books made a +difference. It seemed unlikely that necktie drummers would be on terms +of first-name intimacy with Shakespeare. Moreover, his awkward yet +somehow easy and unassuming air, like that of a friendly young dog who +takes for granted that the world will be glad to see him, marked him as +one not belonging to what her father called "the canile." No, he was a +student and a gentleman, stranded by some freak of fortune in this +near-slum, a youthful Beloved Vagabond. (It was the year when Locke's +great book cast a glamour over all strange men in shabby clothing.) +Although Archibald Blair was by no means shabby; on the contrary, rather +appallingly dapper.</p> + +<p>"I wonder how he happens to be living in a house like this?" she +ruminated aloud.</p> + +<p>"And why wouldn't he be living here?" demanded Ellen tartly. "It's cheap +and decent, and there's some folks that don't like to go forever hoppin' +from one place to another, like fleas on a dog's back. He's lived in +that same room upstairs ever since he can remember."</p> + +<p>"Oh, has he?" Joan's eye kindled. It occurred to her that the young +man's history might have some connection with the history of the house +itself. "Ellen, I have it! It's the old family mansion, belonged to his +father and grandfather and great-grandfather, and <i>of course</i> he wants +to go on living in it. I would myself!"</p> + +<p>Ellen grinned. "If there's a romantical notion to be found, trust you +for finding it. But if you really want to know, folks do say—" She +hesitated, under the hallucination (which many virtuous women share) +that she disliked to repeat gossip.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes? Do go on, Nellen!"</p> + +<p>"Well, they do say that if he's got a father at all it's more than he +knows, let alone a grandfather, and great-grandfather. I had it from a +woman downstairs (her that curls feathers, and she got it straight from +somebody who used to live in the neighborhood when this was a actors' +boardin'-house), that he got left here when he was a little boy, by his +mother, in hock for her board-bill. And she never come back for him."</p> + +<p>Joan gave a gasp. "Oh," she cried. "Oh! poor woman!"</p> + +<p>Ellen eyed her curiously. "Poor <i>woman</i>? I should think you'd say 'poor +child'!"</p> + +<p>"Poor both of them! But can't you see how much greater the tragedy must +have been for the woman, who knew—who was to blame? Imagine how she +must have dreamed of that pitiful little boy with his nose pressed +against the window-pane watching for her—and she not able to come for +him! Ellen—That's what he's doing here now! Waiting for his mother to +come back!"</p> + +<p>"If he is, I hope it's with a club in his hand," muttered the other +angrily. "Why wasn't she 'able to come,' I'd like to know?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps she died. Or, she couldn't get enough money, or oh—oh, Ellen, +don't you <i>see</i>? She didn't dare to come for him! He was getting too +big, noticing things. For his own sake she had to give him up!" There +were tears in Joan's eyes, ready to spill over.</p> + +<p>Ellen paused and stared at her. "Well!" she said at last. "If I had your +imagination, Joan Darcy, I'd go to a hospital and get it cut out. It +ain't safe! Here you are blubbering over the troubles of a woman who +maybe never lived, and probably was a bad lot if she did—and a'most +making me blubber over her myself!"</p> + +<p>Joan laughed and jumped up. "Here, let me help with the dishes. You wash +and I'll wipe. But what a funny, pitiful little boy he must have been +with those stick-out ears and those big, innocent-looking front teeth of +his! I wonder why it is that big front teeth always do make a person +look so innocent, Ellen?"</p> + +<p>"Seems to me you noticed a lot to have seen Mr. Blair only once."</p> + +<p>Joan did not think it necessary to mention that she had seen him more +than once.</p> + +<p>"I always notice things—I can't help it. Anyway, I'm glad you keep the +poor thing darned and comfy! It's only charity."</p> + +<p>"Charity nothing. He pays me good, and prompter than I ever got paid +before in all <i>my</i> life," disclaimed the other rather tactlessly.</p> + +<p>While she washed and put away her dishes, the girl made a tour of +inspection about the rooms that were so full of associations to her. She +smiled and nodded at the two familiar Landseer dogs on the wall, which +had been a familiar part of every dining-room she remembered. She patted +the worn chairs affectionately, and went in to pay her respects to the +shorn four-post bed, which looked more at ease in its present +surroundings than in others where she had seen it. The panelled walls, +as nearly white as scrubbing could make them, the wide-silled windows +with arched casements, the tall mantel-shelf, the finely molded ceiling +which years of coal soot and cobwebs and general neglect had not +sufficed to rob of dignity, all made a more suitable setting than Ellen +guessed for her mistress's household goods; and to Joan these two +bare and shabby rooms had become a haven of refuge. Tenement though it +was, there was more of genuine beauty in the place where Ellen did plain +dressmaking for very humble customers than in all the elaborate +establishment with which Richard Darcy had managed to provide his +daughter. Joan was very dependent upon beauty.</p> + +<p>Later, Ellen walked out with her through the languorous summer evening +to the house which she never called home. Nothing more had been said +between them of the loss of her independence; but the girl felt soothed +and comforted, strengthened as the heart is always strengthened in the +presence of a deep though inarticulate devotion. She slipped her hand +into the other's thin arm, and so linked they walked along without much +talk between them, listening as they passed to pleasant sounds from many +a shadowed porch and garden, guitar music, singing, the inevitable +hushed murmur of boy and girl voices commingled, which is as natural to +a summer gloaming as the twitter of birds in spring.</p> + +<p>There came again to Joan, for the first time in weeks, something of the +glamour, the sense of promise, which had touched her in the summer past +when she walked at night with her father through the strange city where +he had once been young. It was as if Romance brushed her in passing with +shadowy skirts, and Joan felt that she must catch at them, cling to +them, before it was too late. Youth is so short, so short!...</p> + +<p>Ellen, too, felt the witchery of the soft night; but to the Ellens, +Romance comes only vicariously.</p> + +<p>"Joie," she said after a long silence, "ain't it time you was having +some steady company yourself, child?"</p> + +<p>The girl did not smile at the phrase. It voiced too well her own secret +thoughts. There had been something strangely unreal, unnatural, about +the past weeks. She had brought nothing out of her experience with life +so far, not even a friend—for Stefan Nikolai was merely an inheritance.</p> + +<p>"You're right," she said soberly "I suppose I ought to have a 'steady +company' at least by this time. That ought to be simple +enough!—Marriage is about the only thing left for a girl in my +position, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Who's talking about marriage? You don't have to marry every fellow you +walk out with, I should hope," said Ellen surprisingly. "I've walked out +with quite a few myself!... But as to gettin' married, Jo—it's about +the only thing for a girl in any position, I guess, even if she finds +out afterwards that she's picked a lemon. Lemons are better than +nothing."</p> + +<p>"Why, Mrs. Neal!" laughed Joan. "What sentiments from a confirmed +spinster-person!"</p> + +<p>To which Ellen replied quietly, "It's the spinsters who know."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + + +<p>The discovery of her dependence upon her step-mother marked an end to +one period of Joan's existence: the apathetic period. Heretofore she had +allowed their daily life, their amusements, their acquaintanceships, to +remain in the hands of Effie May. If that lady chose, as she naïvely put +it, to "break into society," and society was willing, Joan was amenable, +though a little dubious as to society's taste. She was amenable, that +is, so long as she was not called upon too actively to assist in the +process. Pride forbade her making any effort to interest or to be +interested in people who chose to accept the present Mrs. Darcy as one +of themselves. To the Louisville she knew so far, she was merely the +appendage of her parents, a captive chained to the triumphal +chariot-wheel of her step-mother.</p> + +<p>That was all very well so long as she knew that she might snap the chain +at any moment and be free. But a dependence that seemed likely to +continue indefinitely was not to be borne by what the Major would have +called "the proud spirit of a Darcy." Joan, waking in the early dawn, +rose and dressed (not in negligée), demanded breakfast at an hour when +the astonished servants were barely awake themselves, and proceeded to +clear her decks for action....</p> + +<p>Ellen had sowed a useful suggestion in her brain. There was one freedom +open to all young girls who were not too exacting in their demands: the +freedom of marriage. Joan decided to marry. She also selected the +victim.</p> + +<p>It was the first time she had thought of him for weeks; or of "the +girls," those heart's companions with whom she had shared for two years +her inmost hopes and desires (to say nothing of hats and gloves and +handkerchiefs); with whom at parting she had exchanged vows of lifelong +fealty. Their letters had accumulated unanswered. In the shock and shame +of her father's marriage, she had put away childish things, among them +her schoolmates, who seemed in the retrospect immature and puerile. Even +Eduard of the interesting past had been put away for the moment with +outgrown things, and had remained (fortunately) unthanked for his +parting flowers. As for the love-letter which had accompanied them—Joan +wondered with a start of dismay what had become of it.</p> + +<p>She found it neatly smoothed of its tell-tale wrinkles (the reader will +remember that for a day and a night it had reposed against Joan's +heart), filed among the letters in her desk, where it had been duly +placed after being duly read, doubtless, by one of Mrs. Darcy's +efficient housemaids.</p> + +<p>The girl studied it with a more dispassionate eye than she had brought +to its first perusal:</p> + +<blockquote><p>My flowers must tell you what I dare not, dearest little girl +of my heart. You will understand why I cannot say good-by. +Truly, "to part is to die a little." Forgive me!—<span class="smcap">Eduard.</span></p></blockquote> + +<p>Joan decided that this could not, after all, be called a love-letter; or +if so, it was of a noncommittal type distinctly piquing to the vanity. +She had given a good many of her precious holidays to the reforming of +Mr. Desmond.</p> + +<p>"So!" she thought, with a small gleam in her eye. "I was merely a child +that amused him for the moment! He was probably laughing at me.... I +wonder if he would laugh now?"</p> + +<p>She went to her mirror and examined the reflection within impartially.</p> + +<p>Something of what she had always candidly recognized as her plainness +seemed to have disappeared. She was no longer scrawny, for one thing. +Her lazy life of the past weeks, and possibly Effie May's beauty +experts, whose ministrations she accepted so ungratefully, had put a +gracious covering over her young bones, and she discovered with some +excitement the rudiments of a figure. Her straight, burnished hair (she +had so far resisted all temptations to "marcel" it) gave her what she +fancied a rather <i>distinguè</i> air, and her skin had that rare, pale +transparency of perfect health which is lovelier even than rosiness. Her +eyes had always given perfect satisfaction. She nodded to them in +affectionate fashion, as to good friends (she had always fancied that +one of them was her brain and the other her soul, and even suspected +which was which—the left wearing rather a twinkle, in comparison with +the right, which had a mild, innocuous expression). Her mouth was too +large.</p> + +<p>"But then," she reflected, "large mouths are very much worn by heroines +nowadays, and mine isn't mushy or loose at the corners, anyway. There's +a draw-string to it."</p> + +<p>Of the nose the less said the better. It was merely a nose.</p> + +<p>On the whole, standing there in her pretty morning dress, with the grace +and freshness of nineteen years about her like an aura, young Joan +decided in all modesty that she was one of the women who have their +moments, and that such moments ought not to be wasted.</p> + +<p>She sat down at once and indited a little note to Eduard Desmond +expressing gratitude for "flowers which had meant so much to her," and +explaining that she had not written before "because it had seemed best +not to"—the inference being that now danger was past, and time had made +it safe for her to think of him.</p> + +<p>"That," mused Joan nibbling her penholder, "ought to make him sit up and +take notice, I should think?" She had been from her cradle something of +a student of her fellow-creatures.</p> + +<p>She wrote to his niece, her friend Betty, as well; a long, confidential +screed, mentioning the fact of her father's marriage without comment and +allowing her friend to read between the lines. Betty had an adored +mother of her own.</p> + +<p>Then Joan rested on her oars and awaited results, which were prompt in +coming. Not for nothing had she been the prize letter-writer of her +school, entrusted by friend and foe alike with the handling of anything +that was most delicate in the way of correspondence.</p> + +<p>A few days later she was able to remark to her family that she had been +invited to visit her schoolmate, Betty Desmond, at the Desmond country +place near Philadelphia.</p> + +<p>"The people you spent the Christmas holidays with in Washington? A fine +old Irish name," commented the Major, who made something of a specialty +of names. "I have not the pleasure of their acquaintance, but I am sure +the good Sisters would not have permitted you to visit them if they had +not been—ah! desirable acquaintances."</p> + +<p>"They are quite rich, if that is what you mean," said his daughter +bluntly. Her manner to her father had latterly undergone a change which +was not altogether nice.</p> + +<p>The Major's eyebrows shot up in pained surprise. "Joan! That is +certainly irrelevant, not to say—"</p> + +<p>"And there's an eligible young man in the family," continued the girl +imperturbably.</p> + +<p>He stared at her, speechless. "My child!" he exclaimed after a moment. +"One would suppose you were actually—"</p> + +<p>"Hunting for a husband? I am," she finished. "What else did you expect +me to do?"</p> + +<p>A burst of laughter from Effie May relieved the situation. "Of course +she's hunting for a husband! All girls are, unless they're lookin' for +trouble. Good for you, dearie! You'll land him, too, I'll bet my hat. +Men? Lord," she cried, "they're as easy as fallin' off a log, once you +get the hang of 'em!"</p> + +<p>But the Major continued to gaze at his daughter incredulously. "To +think," he murmured, "that I should live to hear <i>my daughter</i> speak in +such a manner!" It was evidently not the idea which shocked him, so much +as the indelicate expression of it.</p> + +<p>Joan rose suddenly and left the table.</p> + +<p>Effie May came to her afterwards, intent on comforting. "There, there, +girlie, you mustn't mind what your papa says; he's just a man. Besides, +he's so genteel in his instincts he's hardly human. Your mamma would +have understood, just like I do. <i>She</i> wouldn't of thought you'd said +anything unrefined!"</p> + +<p>"Thank you," muttered Joan bitterly.</p> + +<p>"Why, it's the most natural thing in the world that a girl wants a house +of her own, and a man of her own, and so forth! Only most of 'em ain't +honest enough to come out flat and say so.... I'm for you, dearie. +You're to have the trip, of course, and anything else you want, just let +me know. As if I was really your mother—I mean it!"</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Joan again.</p> + +<p>It was not the first time she had been disconcerted to find the enemy +fighting her battles. What is to be done with an enemy which will not +keep its proper place?</p> + +<p>Effie May concerned herself in the preparations for departure with a +whole-hearted generosity which occasioned Joan some secret pangs of +remorse. As a step-relative she knew that she herself had left much to +be desired. In vain the girl protested that she had already too many +clothes, too much finery.</p> + +<p>"Nonsense! A girl can't have too much finery," was the rejoinder. "Even +if you don't get to wear all your pretties, it makes you feel sort of +easy, sort of good-as-anybody like, just to know you've got 'em in the +closet."</p> + +<p>With her own hands she ran ribbons and rearranged trimmings and packed, +to the secret jealousy of Ellen, keeping up a constant stream of shrewd +comment and advice, some of which Joan found worth remembering.</p> + +<p>"The trouble with you is, girlie, you think too much," was one of the +pearls that fell from her lips. "Just let go and have a good time, and +don't take yourself so hard. You can feel as different as you like +inside, just so folks don't know it. Folks are sort of leery of what +they aren't used to. See?"</p> + +<p>Joan often wondered in what school of experience her step-mother had +gleaned her curious wisdom.</p> + +<p>Ellen Neal was the only one of the three elders who watched her going +with any uneasiness.</p> + +<p>"Look here, Joan," she said once, abruptly. "When I spoke like I done +about marriage being the best thing for a girl, I meant marriage with +love, child—marriage <i>with love</i>. Like your mamma's."</p> + +<p>The simile was unfortunate. The eye that Joan believed to be her brain +twinkled mockingly. "Do you mean to insinuate that marriage and love are +not always synonymous? Why, Mrs. Neal, you put so many strange ideas +into my young head lately! Seriously," she added, seeing that the +other's anxious gravity did not relax, "I don't believe it would be hard +to pump up a little love in return for—lots of it, say, and a place of +your own in the world, and independence."</p> + +<p>"Where there's love there ain't apt to be much independence, I've +noticed," remarked the other.</p> + +<p>"All the more reason to do without love, then!" cried Joan, with +triumphant logic.</p> + +<p>But she hugged Ellen remorsefully, glad that the good woman could only +guess at what was going on at the moment in her nursling's brain.</p> + +<p>Her step-mother's casual advice and her own inner musings had resulted +in one firm determination. If she missed romance, experience, all the +real things of life, it would not be for lack of meeting them halfway. +She would be no longer a passive agent. She would be bold and +reckless—even if necessary a little Fast; though how to go about being +Fast was somewhat of a puzzle to Mary's daughter.</p> + +<p>"If people want to say things, or squeeze my hand, or anything like +that," she told herself rather vaguely, "I must remember not to hold +back and be standoffish.... How do I know what I like unless I try?"</p> + +<p>But while the noun on her tongue was plural and indefinite, the noun on +her mind was single and masculine and very definite indeed. It behooved +Mr. Desmond to look to himself.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + + +<p>Joan, already exhilarated by a foretaste of independence, and enjoying +to the full what Turgenev calls "that carelessness, that deuce-take-it +air which comes out so naturally in foreign travel," changed at Broad +Street for a local train that stops at all the smart little +flower-bedecked stations which make the environs of Philadelphia so +charming to the eye. Neat turnouts were waiting at most of them, +dog-carts with dapper grooms at the horses' heads, big machines driven +by bare-headed young people in sports clothes; here and there a quietly +elegant brougham or limousine with men in livery on the box.</p> + +<p>As her train passed, she caught glimpses of mellow, red-brick houses +that gave the effect of age without decadence; tree-lined avenues, +hot-houses, gardens, velvet lawns. It was country that lacked the broad, +picturesque loveliness of Kentucky landscape, but it had a definite +charm of its own—a well-ordered, leisurely, finished permanence which +reminded one that not only American history but American society had its +stronghold here, changing less than elsewhere in our adolescent land. +There was no suggestion, as in the South, of having seen better days; no +raw, temporary promise of the future as in the Middle West. Joan +remembered having heard that many people who danced in the Philadelphia +Assembly of to-day bore the same names as those who danced in it when +Philadelphia was the country's capital, and Mr. Washington its first +President. She wondered hopefully whether Desmond was one of those +names....</p> + +<p>People got in and out of the train, carrying golf-bags and +tennis-rackets. Joan smoothed the skirt of the "little model" Effie May +had provided for traveling purposes; a fawncolored crêpe with lacy cuffs +and collar, which had at first given her qualms of uneasiness. There was +a long cloth coat to match, and a hat of the costliest simplicity; and +she was not used to traveling dressed as for a party. Now, however, she +was grateful for her step-mother's insistence, with a gratitude which +increased in proportion to the distance between them.</p> + +<p>"Always dress up on a train," was Effie May's sage counsel, "so that +people will notice you're a lady, and treat you according."</p> + +<p>People had undoubtedly noticed, and she had been treated "according"; +and now toward her journey's end it was particularly agreeable to feel +that among these fellow-travelers on pleasure bent she need have no +qualms as to her personal appearance, at least. Underneath she might +know herself to be plain, poor little Joan Darcy, an adventuress in +search of a husband; but on the surface she was as affluent a young lady +as ever rang for the porter to lower a shade that was within two feet of +her hand.</p> + +<p>It may be premature to state that our heroine had already adjusted her +future to her present pleasing environment; but the fact remains that +when the train stopped at the station for which her subconscious mind +had fortunately been listening, Joan was just in the act of moving Ellen +Neal and her mother's furniture into a large Quaker house with a gambrel +roof....</p> + +<p>Betty was waiting for her in a dog-cart; brown as a berry, with sleeves +rolled up, and a bare, tousled head, quite a different young person +already from the shy little girl who had been her slave at the Convent.</p> + +<p>"Hurry up, old Joie!" she called, wrestling with the cob, who rose on +his hind legs to snort at the snorting engine, while a diminutive groom +tried with frantic leapings to reach his head. "The Rabbit hates to +stand! Run and get Miss Darcy's things, Jenks" (this to the groom) "and +be quick about it, will you? You see," she explained as Joan climbed +perilously aboard and was duly kissed, "when I left, Mother was two up +and four to play, and it's the finals, and she's already got a leg on +the cup. Great, isn't it? We'll have to gallop all the way to get there +before it's over!"</p> + +<p>"What <i>are</i> you talking about?" asked mystified Joan. "A leg on the +cup—!" Hitherto golf had not entered into her vocabulary; though she +had gazed at it from afar, wondering at the strange ways men choose to +waste their golden hours.</p> + +<p>"Why, the tournament, of course! Didn't I write you? We're deep in it. +Where are your clubs, by the way?" She glanced at Joan's bag and +parasol-case. "Oh, dear! Have you left them on the train?"</p> + +<p>"Clubs?—You mean golf-sticks?" asked Joan, with misgivings. "Why, I +haven't any. I don't play golf."</p> + +<p>"<i>Don't play golf?</i>" cried Betty in genuine dismay. "What ever will you +do with yourself here? And how on earth do you amuse yourself in +Kentucky? Just ride?"</p> + +<p>"Why, yes," said Joan feebly, "we—we ride."</p> + +<p>Once, indeed, during a period of comparative affluence, the Major had +possessed for a while a horse of the family type; and under his +instruction Joan had occasionally mounted the complaisant beast and +propelled it fearfully about back streets, feeling that something was +due her Kentucky traditions. But suppose she were expected to mount, for +instance, some such fire-eater as the Rabbit!</p> + +<p>"I don't believe I've brought my riding-clothes," she murmured hastily.</p> + +<p>"Goose! Why not? But I dare say Mother can fit you out with trousers," +said Betty, glancing casually at her friend's slim length of limb. +"Mine'd be too short. With trousers and a sweater you'll be all right."</p> + +<p>Joan's eyes opened wide, but her mouth remained closed. After all, she +was out for experience. If it included meeting a violent death while +clad in trousers and a sweater, so be it.</p> + +<p>"Uncle Neddy'll find you a decent horse somewhere," Betty was running +on. "He's awfully keen about your coming, Jo. I'm afraid you're going to +have him on your hands a lot, especially if you don't play golf."</p> + +<p>Joan brightened. "Why? Doesn't he?"</p> + +<p>"Lord, no! Too much of a duffer. Likes to do lazy things, like riding, +and fooling around in a canoe, admiring nature. With widows and such!" +She made a face.</p> + +<p>"Widows?" Joan pricked an ear.</p> + +<p>"Grass or sod. It's all one to our Neddy," murmured his flippant niece. +"Girls are not grown up enough for him, of course—Except you. He always +did take notice when you were around. I remember. But then you were +always more grown up than the rest of us, somehow." She gave her friend +a glance full of the old shy admiration. "Do you know, you've gotten to +be awfully pretty too. Perhaps it's all those grand clothes!"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it is," smiled Joan, flushing.</p> + +<p>At school she had been the poor girl of her group, the one who had most +often to borrow and least often to lend the simple fineries current +among them for special occasions. Now under her friend's appraising eyes +she was a little uncomfortable, wondering whether the dress she had on +was perhaps a little too "grand" by comparison with Betty's plain linen. +Linens she owned herself, but braided, embroidered, lace-inserted out of +all recognition as such. It was a physical impossibility for Effie May +to select anything plain. Under her manipulation, the merest shirt-waist +became what the salesladies refer to majestically as a "bloose." +Sartorially Joan was entirely in her step-mother's hands.</p> + +<p>"But Southern girls always do dress up a lot, don't they?" said Betty, +innocently continuing her line of thought. "You ought to have seen the +one the Ritters had visiting them last month! All ruffles, and parasols, +and chiffon veils. Couldn't swim or go for a ride or do anything on +account of her complexion. All she did was to dance and sit out in +corners with people. It was disgusting!"</p> + +<p>"And didn't your uncle take notice even of <i>her</i>?" murmured Joan.</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course. She was as good as a widow, you see—she'd had so many +affairs. The men simply flocked. Whenever she came on to the +tennis-court she'd break up the game, and we could hardly find enough +men to make up a foursome, they were all so busy hanging around. It was +too queer! I never could see the attraction in rolling your eyes, and +flashing your dimples, and dropping your r's like a colored servant, +could you?—Not," she added hastily, "that <i>all</i> Southern girls are that +sort, Joie dear! You, for instance!"</p> + +<p>"I should hope not," murmured Joan; who had decided on the instant to be +exactly that sort herself, so far as in her lay. It suited the +elaborateness of her wardrobe; it saved her from golf and tennis and +other amusements which bade fair to be terrifying in this sporting +community—particularly the embarrassments of horseback riding. Joan was +too much of an egotist to enter willingly into competitions where she +had no chance to excel.</p> + +<p>No; the languid beauty was her rôle for the next few weeks; and she +flattered herself that after several months of Louisville she ought to +be able to drop her r's and roll her eyes and flash her dimples with the +best, particularly if the audience were not too experienced in +Southernism. In school theatricals she had always distinguished herself. +Moreover, she had the advantage of a lifelong model to work from; for +Richard Darcy was one of those sons of Dixie whose characteristics +become more markedly Dixotic the farther they travel from base.</p> + +<p>Let the Ritters' guest look to her laurels!</p> + +<p>By way of preparation Joan got out her lip-stick and her powder-puff and +did what she could to improve on nature, Betty watching her the while in +amused respect.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad <i>I</i> don't have to mess my face up with things like that," she +commented frankly. "But I suppose when one goes in for a real complexion +it's got to be taken care of."</p> + +<p>Joan murmured something explanatory about the ravages of a Southern sun; +and so entered upon her brief and eventful career as a Kentucky beauty.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + + +<p>Joan's respect for the sterner sex, never very exaggerated, was not +increased by the avidity with which they swallowed, one by one, her +inexperienced hook, bait and all. Evidently her fellow-men had very +little use for nice, intelligent, modest young girls in comparison with +the Brazen Hussie.... For Joan had no illusions about herself, either. +She had joined, temporarily it is true, and for what seemed to her +legitimate reasons, the order of the Brazen Hussies.</p> + +<p>She put into practice as many of her step-mother's precepts as she could +recall, and found that they worked astonishingly well. She also +cultivated a beauty-manner, modeling herself on a certain Louisville +belle whose manœuvers she had observed with interest. She became +helplessly sweet and very, very feminine; and she smiled whenever there +was an excuse for smiling. It was a new smile she had practised before +the mirror; an intimate, confiding, personal affair that crinkled up her +long eyes charmingly, and showed at least two thirds of her good white +teeth. Eduard Desmond occasionally referred to these teeth as "pearls," +though they were hard and sharp and strong as a young squirrel's: Eduard +being the sort of person who takes his similes ready-made out of poetry.</p> + +<p>Surprisingly enough, considering the sporting nature of the community in +which she found herself, Joan heard a good deal of poetry during this +visit. The moon happened to be full, and Longmeadow edged upon a river; +one of those pleasant, cosy little streams that are designed by an +all-wise Providence for canoes to float upon in summer evenings. By day +other girls had their innings on golf-links and tennis-court (though +even by day our heroine was not idle). But at night with the moon she +came into her own. She made her canoe engagements days ahead, not too +frequently with Eduard; and she came to the conclusion that just as +infants at a certain stage must go through the teething period, so +somewhat later they must go with equal painfulness through the poetry +period. It gave her quite a motherly feeling toward her admirers; which +fortunately she was able to dissemble.</p> + +<p>By contrast with the sportsmanlike young women of the community, Joan, +in her frills and wide hats and small, beaded, high-heeled slippers, +seemed to fill a long-felt want. Her rôle was by no means an +uninteresting one. Occasionally in the course of events she got almost, +if not quite, kissed; and she became expert in deflecting the course of +inconvenient emotion.</p> + +<p>"It's suggestion does it," she wrote to her friend Mr. Nikolai. "Given a +moon, fluffy ruffles, and the Kentucky-belle tradition—and they seem +helpless, poor dears!"</p> + +<p>But perhaps it was not entirely the power of suggestion that made her +success. Joan was enough of an artist to do whatever she did with a +certain finish.</p> + +<p>Her difficulty, however, in the heady game she played, was to +concentrate on the purpose in hand. At the end of two weeks, she began +to fancy a slight diminution of cordiality on the part of both Betty and +her mother, and she realized that her visit was growing longer than +seemed usual. Other guests came and went, remaining only a few days +before going on to the next engagement. Accustomed to the indeterminate +visits of the South, she had not thought to set any definite time for +her departure; but now she felt uncomfortably that the hour had come to +bring things to a climax. She gave herself one more week at Longmeadow. +Surely three weeks is a short enough time in which to provide oneself +with a future and a husband!</p> + +<p>She was by no means counting without her host. From the day of her +arrival Eduard had taken no pains to hide the fact that he considered +her his especial property. While his manner was still that of one who +would not willingly brush the bloom from off the peach, there had always +been in it a disturbing hint, a slight flattering suggestion, that +peaches are tempting even to the jaded appetite. Lately his air of +possession had become, to Joan's amusement, decidedly tinged with +jealousy. He viewed his more youthful rivals with no attempt at +equanimity.</p> + +<p>Joan was aware that people were beginning to discuss the affair, and to +watch her curiously. It put her on her mettle. She intended to satisfy +their curiosity very shortly; but—she wished the thing might be managed +without the necessity for so many tête-à-têtes.</p> + +<p>It was not that she did not like her future husband. On the contrary she +liked him so well as to find herself a little shy with him. She +preferred his attentions to take place against a background of society; +as for instance, at a dance, when his eye could be as significant as it +chose without alarming her; or at table, where under cover of the +general conversation, they managed some moments of real intimacy.</p> + +<p>There was much to be said, thought Joan, for the French method of +vigorously chaperoning young love up to the very threshold of matrimony.</p> + +<p>As it was, his foot seemed uncomfortably prone to rest on hers beneath +the table; and once when he stooped to recover a dropped fan, his lips +had brushed like a touch of delicate flame along the bare length of her +forearm—But these indications of what was to come the startled girl was +able to ignore as accidental. (She had decided, it will be recalled, to +be if necessary a trifle Fast.)</p> + +<p>At last she steeled herself firmly to the necessity for tête-à-têtes, +realizing that even so finished a performer as Mr. Desmond could not +well manage a genuine proposal during the intricacies of the tango, or +at dinner between the soup and the entrée. There were certain +accompaniments, she fancied, that made the idea of a proposal in public +impracticable—Joan's imagination was frequently as useful to her as +experience.</p> + +<p>She had managed to escape the perils of horseback riding by an inspired +expedient. Duplicity, she found, came easily with practice.</p> + +<p>"Straddle a horse? Oh, honey, I couldn't!" she had murmured at her most +Southern, when informed that there were no side-saddles in the +Longmeadow stables.</p> + +<p>"Why," protested Betty, "there's not a side-saddle to be had this side +of Kentucky, Jo—they're as extinct as the Dodo! And even if there were, +papa would never allow one on any of our horses. You haven't your habit +here, anyway. Do be sensible, dear. I'll let you ride the Rabbit!"</p> + +<p>Joan shook her head, regretfully but firmly. "If my father were to see a +lady of his family straddling a horse, in trousers," she said, "I think +he'd have a stroke!"—which was doubtless true.</p> + +<p>It was necessary, therefore, for Eduard's increasing desire for solitude +to take the form of canoeing, or driving in the dog-cart without a +groom; or preferably, strolling through a certain bit of near-by +woodland.</p> + +<p>Here he liked to fling himself at his handsome length on the moss at +Joan's feet, and read to her chosen bits out of the "Rubaiyat": a work +much in favor at the moment, which would appear to have been translated +by Mr. Fitzgerald for the express purpose of uttering Mr. Desmond's +sentiments.</p> + +<p>Joan murmured "Um-m-m!" and "How true!" and "Exquisite!" in the right +places; but she was not often listening to him. She was watching the +play of light and shade on his fine, waving hair; she was studying more +keenly than she knew the chiseled features, bearing those slight marks +of manly dissipation which are for some reason never wholly displeasing +to the young feminine eye; she was noticing the smallness of his hands, +the really beautiful cut and quality of his clothes.</p> + +<p>What sort of person was he under the agreeable surface, this chosen +husband of hers?</p> + +<p>An artist, people had called him: but Art in his case seemed not the +exacting mistress she had fancied it. Or perhaps the artistic +temperament required long periods of recuperative leisure.... She had +decided that it was wiser not to fall in love, at least till after +marriage: but she did choose that her husband should be the sort of +person it was possible to fall in love with; well-bred, fastidious, +cultivated, thoroughly a man of the world. All these Eduard Desmond was, +and more. He had a real and unaffected taste for music, books, +nature—for what Joan called to herself "the real things." It argued +well for future companionship.</p> + +<p>There was, to be sure, the disability of what she thought of vaguely as +his "habits." But there had been no sign of them in the two weeks she +had lived in the same house with him; and even if he had not as yet +completely overcome them, there was no reason why he should not do so +later, with a watchful wife to help him. On the whole their chances for +happiness together seemed quite as good as those of most people she +knew, thought Joan, with unconscious cynicism.</p> + +<p>The material side of the arrangement did not occur to her. For all her +calm calculations, Joan was not mercenary. All she asked was a place of +her own in the world, a sense of permanence; she longed quite wistfully +for a background that "stayed put." Romance was a thing she felt she +could do without forever, in return for independence from her +step-mother, and perhaps a little home of her own with a garden to it. +She believed that to any man who would provide these few essentials she +could be a faithful and a loyal wife.</p> + +<p>What would he expect of her in return? Would she have to go on all her +life being Southern and winsome and alluring? Would he prefer her, after +the honeymoon, say, to go in heavily for sports, like the women of his +set? Or might she presently venture to be just herself again—just Joan, +whatever that might be! The gayest of rôles becomes a trifle wearing for +everyday use.</p> + +<p>She sighed; and looking up from the Rubaiyat, he caught her eyes fixed +upon him, wide and speculative.</p> + +<p>"What is the little girl thinking of?" he asked tenderly.</p> + +<p>She answered at once, with a return of her gay daring, "You—of course!"</p> + +<p>But under his intensifying gaze her own dropped, and he went on reading; +in a voice that shook, however.</p> + +<p>"Now for it!" said Joan suddenly to herself. She dropped her hand +negligently on the leaves, close to his.</p> + +<p>She resisted the temptation to jerk it back as soon as she was aware of +its contact with another. Very slight the contact was, no more than the +touch of a leaf. She pretended not to notice it; but the blood sang in +her ears, her cheeks burned—she wished suddenly that he would take her +hand, if he was going to; hold it tight....</p> + +<p>Heavens! What was happening to her? She <i>wanted</i> the touch of his hand; +she liked it! Did she care for him, then? Was this being in +love—already?</p> + +<p>"Joan," he whispered. "Look at me!"</p> + +<p>The spell was broken. She jumped to her feet. "Come, we must be getting +back," she said hurriedly. "It is late."</p> + +<p>"Ah, but how cold you are!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am, a little," she said innocently. "These woods are damp."</p> + +<p>But all the way home, beneath her relief, lingered a sense of annoyance, +of disappointment.</p> + +<p>"What a prig I am," she thought disgustedly. "It would be all over now +if I'd only—let him!"</p> + +<p>That night she wrote at unusual length to Mr. Nikolai. It was almost +like writing to herself; and Joan frequently felt the need of seeing +what she was about set down in black and white, for greater clarity.</p> + +<p>She had not meant to tell Mr. Nikolai of her imminent engagement till +the thing was <i>fait accompli</i>; but she knew that everything would be +settled by the time her letter reached him. She wanted to be reassured +about her odd and unexpected emotion during the contact of her hand with +Eduard Desmond's. Was it so, then, that people fell in love, just +suddenly without any warning? And had the mind nothing to do with it +whatever?</p> + +<p>For mentally she was not altogether pleased with herself.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + + +<p>The idea that Betty and her mother were eyeing her somewhat askance +troubled Joan not a little. In her heart of hearts she preferred women +to men, and believed their friendship more of a compliment. She would +have liked to make a friend of Mrs. Desmond, had there been time, +envying Betty's camaraderie with her mother; although Mrs. Desmond +presented a golfing, bridge-playing, sporting type of motherhood quite +new to her experience.</p> + +<p>There was a peculiar intimacy and freedom among all this group of +people, who seemed to spend most of the year together either in +Philadelphia or Aiken or Ormond or these long-established country-places +surrounding the Longmeadow Hunt Club. It was like a curiously ramified +family, in which husbands and wives seemed to have changed partners +rather frequently, and were still in process of changing. It was Joan's +first glimpse of a society in which married women hold the center of the +stage rather than young girls, and she was just a little shocked by it.</p> + +<p>There appeared to be no age limit here. It was not so much that these +women concealed their age, after the rather obvious fashion of Effie +May, as that they simply ignored it. Even Mrs. Desmond, dignified and +well-bred though she was, had a devoted attendant or two, spoken of +casually by Betty as "mamma's flames," and during Joan's visit at least +Mr. Desmond remained merely an abstraction. Conjugal affection was +distinctly not the fashion in the Desmond circle.</p> + +<p>But this casualness of relations did not extend to the young girls. They +had no such freedom as Joan was accustomed to in the South. Betty, at +eighteen, was as carefully guarded as if she were still a child. She was +not permitted to go into the city without a maid or an older woman; she +neither drove or canoed alone with men, nor "sat out" with them at +dances. And it did not occur to her to protest.</p> + +<p>"That sort of thing isn't good form," she explained once to Joan. "For +us, at least—Of course with Southern girls it's different."</p> + +<p>But Joan began to suspect that even Southern girls were expected to hold +in regard this one fetish they had elected to worship, Good Form; and +that according to this standard she had already been condemned.</p> + +<p>At first the younger women had made some effort to include her in their +various activities, golf, bridge, tennis. But latterly they had left her +alone, not severely but tolerantly, as one dedicated to other pursuits.</p> + +<p>"Miss Darcy? Oh, she's from the South, you know—awfully busy with the +men," she overheard one of them explain to a newcomer; and she had +resented the remark keenly, not only for herself, but for the women of +her adopted home, who at least are rarely "busy with the men" after +marriage.</p> + +<p>The person who made this remark was a Mrs. Rossiter, a pretty, boyish +creature, already divorced and remarried at thirty, and bearing her +present conjugality rather lightly. She was on terms of great intimacy +with the Desmond family, Eduard included; and Joan fancied that she +might have been one of the "widows" mentioned by Betty as her uncle's +chosen companions.</p> + +<p>But if it had been so, her day was done. Eduard had palpably no eyes for +her now, and Joan could afford the generosity of admiring Mrs. Rossiter. +She was so natural and frank, and so royally indifferent to others' +opinion. Joan, who had a fatal propensity for acting as the people about +her expected her to act, envied her this assurance, and wished that she +could make friends with her.</p> + +<p>The truth was that the girl, despite her success, felt utterly lonely. +She saw very little of Betty. Mrs. Desmond was an experienced hostess +who made no attempt to regulate the comings and goings of her guests, +and the girls made separate engagements. Even bedtime confidences had +ceased, owing to the fact that when Joan came up to her room, Betty was +usually asleep.</p> + +<p>But on the night of her illuminating afternoon in the woods with Eduard, +Betty appeared to be waiting up for her. She came yawning into Joan's +room to watch her friend undress, and established herself sleepily on +the foot of the bed.</p> + +<p>"What a pity you can't wear your hair down all the time, Jo! Men adore +hair, don't they? And yours has a regular patina on it, like old +bronze."</p> + +<p>"Not greenish, I hope," laughed Joan.</p> + +<p>"No—sort of orangish. Dark, with an orange lining."</p> + +<p>"Betty! It sounds horrible!"</p> + +<p>"Well, you know very well it isn't.—May Rossiter thinks you are awfully +clever to wear it that simple way, too, so straight and plain, when the +rest of us stick out like mops. She says you're awfully clever about +lots of things—too smart for the likes of us."</p> + +<p>"Does she?" Joan was a little startled and not quite pleased. She had +not intended to give the impression of cleverness. It was out of her +present rôle entirely. "I wonder what Mrs. Rossiter meant by that?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, men, of course," yawned Betty. "You see you've annexed a few of +hers, which naturally makes her peevish."</p> + +<p>"Have I?" murmured Joan. "Who, for instance?"</p> + +<p>"Well, Uncle Neddy, for one."</p> + +<p>"Oh! So she <i>was</i> one of his flames, then?"</p> + +<p>Betty sat up. "You mean to say you didn't know it? One of them! <i>The</i> +one, my child! Surely you remember about his broken heart?—the married +lady he was recovering from in Washington last year? Well, May's it. Of +course I'm not supposed to know, being an <i>ingénue</i>—but our Neddy was +frightfully gone on her, and she returned it, and the husband she had +then got jealous (rather a bounder he was, not one of us, you know), and +there was some sort of excitement, and she divorced him. Every one +thought to marry Uncle Ned, of course. But instead she upped and married +Mr. Rossiter! Joke on Neddy, wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>Joan's lip curled. "What a romantic love story! Why do you suppose she +married that old Mr. Rossiter?"</p> + +<p>Betty shrugged in a worldly-wise manner. "Awfully rich, my dear. And +Neddy isn't."</p> + +<p>"But they seem friendly enough still, she and Mr. Desmond?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course. Why not? It would be frightfully uncomfortable for the +rest of us if they glowered and didn't speak and all that, like +quarreling servants. And Uncle Neddy seems to be consoling himself!" She +twinkled at Joan. "That evens things up, you see. But,"—she suddenly +grew grave—"what do <i>you</i> get out of all this, Joan? You couldn't +possibly <i>like</i> seeing so much of Uncle Neddy! He's such a—softy. And +such a bore, too, with his art and poetry and stuff."</p> + +<p>"You mean," smiled Joan, "he's too mature for you, dear."</p> + +<p>"Too mature for you then, too! You're only a few months older."</p> + +<p>The other gave an unconscious sigh. "Oh, me—I'm different."</p> + +<p>Betty rounded upon her, "You certainly are! I've never seen such a +change in any one as a few months have made in you! Sometimes I hardly +recognize you for the Jo I used to know at school—so funny and larky, +and yet paying no more attention to the boys we used to make eyes at +over at the College than if they didn't exist."</p> + +<p>"College boys <i>don't</i> exist," said Joan gravely. "They're like tadpoles, +just a transition state. And rather disgusting."</p> + +<p>"Not half as disgusting as the Uncle Neds! Look here, Joan," Betty +blurted out, "you're not—wanting to get married, are you?"</p> + +<p>Joan went as pale as the other was flushed. "No," she said in a low +voice, "I'm not!"</p> + +<p>Betty heaved a sigh of relief. "There! That's what I told 'em." (She did +not mention whom.) "The Ritters' guest was different. She <i>had</i> to get +married, because she'd been visiting 'round for years, and people were +getting tired of it, and she couldn't pay for her clothes. But you, at +your age, with all the beaux you must have! Why, you wouldn't touch +Uncle Neddy with a ten-foot pole."</p> + +<p>Joan bit her lip. "Why not, Betty?" she asked, quietly. "What's wrong +with your uncle? You mean—because he drinks?"</p> + +<p>Betty looked uncomfortable. She was more of an <i>ingénue</i> than she +thought, and found herself getting into deep water.</p> + +<p>"I don't know exactly," she confessed, "but there's <i>something</i> wrong +with him. I don't think he drinks; not more than everybody does, anyway. +He's too fastidious—and I'd have noticed if he did. But there are other +ways of being dissipated—aren't there?"</p> + +<p>"I see!" said Joan, wisely; though she saw with some vagueness. Chorus +girls, she fancied, models, the artistic temperament, and all that.... +On the whole, she felt rather relieved.</p> + +<p>"That sort of thing ought to be easier to cure than drinking," she mused +aloud, "if a man were happily married."</p> + +<p>"<i>If!</i>" repeated Betty. "The question is, could it be done? Well, thank +Heaven, <i>we</i> don't have to do it, anyway. I'd hate the job of keeper to +Uncle Ned's roving eye!... Ugh, let's not talk about it! Years before +you and I have to think of horrid things like marriage—Good night, you +bad old flirt," she murmured, kissing her friend.</p> + +<p>Joan was left with the subtle impression of having been warned.</p> + +<p>The impression was repeated the next morning when Mrs. Desmond, meeting +her on the stairs, remarked with a friendly pat of the arm in passing, +"I do wish you'd teach Betty something of the fine art of keeping them +guessing, Joan, It's quite wonderful the way you play them all off +against each other, and so good for them—particularly Ned! He's rather +spoiled, I'm afraid—used to monopolizing his favorites...."</p> + +<p>Evidently the Desmonds did not intend to take her affair with Eduard +seriously. For the first time it occurred to her that this might be +because they did not wish to. She was certainly not, to use Betty's +significant phrase, "one of them."</p> + +<p>The girl's head lifted haughtily. She was a Darcy of Kentucky. Surely +that was sufficient?</p> + +<p>Once in her childhood she had heard her father remark in a moment of +especial grandiloquence that Darcys were entitled to the society of +kings and queens; and Joan had never doubted the truth of the statement. +Something within assured her that she would feel perfectly at ease with +any kings or queens who chanced to cross her path. In fact the only +people with whom so far she had not felt at ease were snobs and +parvenues, under neither of which categories the Desmonds could be +placed.</p> + +<p>Now she wondered suddenly to what she and her father owed this +comfortable sense of lofty destiny. True, theirs was "an old Southern +family"; but living in a part of the world that seems entirely populated +by such families, this was no distinction. Darcys, she knew, had fought +and died for their country whenever occasion offered, but so had quite +simple people named Smith or Jones. She racked her brain to think of +anything else they might have done for their country, or even for +themselves. Genius had never made its appearance among them, nor wealth, +nor even beauty, to any noticeable extent. They were rich in one thing +only: self-esteem.</p> + +<p>Fortunately, however, Joan had her share of that; and upon further +reflection she decided that "Darcy" was at least as distinguished a name +as "Desmond." Doubtless their ancestors had been kings in Ireland +together.</p> + +<p>The question of her poverty occurred to her for a moment, only to be +dismissed as negligible. The Desmonds were too well-bred to be +mercenary. Eduard was not rich himself; and if, as Betty intimated, his +reputation was a trifle tarnished, he could not be too exacting in his +demands. He could not expect youth, and charm, and wit, and a dowry as +well! thought Joan complacently. No: Eduard would be getting quite as +much as he gave....</p> + +<p>It was in rather a defiant mood that she appeared at dinner that night +in a blue chiffon frock which the observant Eduard had pronounced his +favorite; and though some people were expected afterwards for dancing, +she deliberately accepted his murmured suggestion that they row up the +river to see the last of the harvest moon.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + + +<p>There had naturally been some discussion at the Convent as to the most +desirable setting for proposals, the consensus of opinion being in favor +of Miss Alcott's little water-scene between Amy and the faithless +Laurie. Laurie, the reader will remember, is rowing Amy about in the +romantic region of Chillon (still with regretful memories of Jo hovering +in the background, however), when she catches him eyeing her with an +expression which</p> + +<blockquote><p>"makes her say hastily, merely for the sake of saying +something:</p> + +<p>"'You must be tired; rest a little and let me row,' etc.</p> + +<p>"'I'm not tired, but you may take an oar if you like,' etc.</p> + +<p>"Feeling that she had not mended matters much, Amy took the +offered third of a seat, shook her hair over her face" (Joan +personally suspected that Amy belonged also to the order of the +Brazen Hussies) "and accepted an oar.</p> + +<p>"'How well we pull together, don't we?' said Amy, who objected +to silence just then.</p> + +<p>"'So well that I wish we might always pull together in the same +boat. Will you, Amy?' very tenderly.</p> + +<p>"'Yes, Laurie,' very low.</p> + +<p>"Then they both stopped rowing, and unconsciously added a +pretty little tableau of human love and happiness to the +dissolving views reflected in the lake."</p></blockquote> + +<p>This classic scene was not absent from Joan's mind as she seated herself +and her blue chiffon recklessly in the prow of Eduard's canoe; though +the details of stage-management troubled her somewhat. Suppose the +proposer chose to kneel at the feet of the proposee—since there was no +seat to share with her? And suppose the proposer lost his head (as might +properly be expected of him) and embraced the proposee madly—what was +to prevent so precarious a thing as a canoe from tipping over! It seemed +to call for great presence of mind on the part of the proposee. Joan +felt rather nervous.</p> + +<p>Mr. Desmond, however, let the opportunity pass. Perhaps he had not read +"Little Women."</p> + +<p>Amid talk so casual that it might as well have been silence, they +slipped along between the wide gray of earth and sky, afloat on a stream +of silver. They came presently to an overhanging willow, where he tied +the boat, and helped Joan ashore. He led her, with an air of one +performing a ceremony, up a slight rise of land topped by a great +beech-tree, whose widespread roots made a sort of armchair, after the +hospitable fashion of beech-trees.</p> + +<p>"Queen Joan on her throne, viewing her domain," he murmured.</p> + +<p>He had not brought her to this place before, and she realized that he +had been saving it for a special occasion. There was a view before her +of shadowy, dreaming country, with a hint of stars to come, and +sheep-bells tinkling in a distant field, and lights gleaming here and +there from half-hidden houses.</p> + +<p>Eduard began to murmur softly:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"When the quiet-colored end of evening smiles,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Miles on miles<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'er our many-tinkling meadows where the sheep<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Half asleep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wander homeward through the twilight, browse and crop<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As they stop—"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>A sudden impatience seized Joan. How like him to arrange this setting, +to bring things carefully to a climax, and then—to spout Browning at +her!</p> + +<p>But she said, as he paused, "Beautiful! 'Love among the Ruins,' isn't +it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—And I," he sighed, tapping himself on the chest, "I am the Ruins!"</p> + +<p>Despite the bombast of his tone, there was something in his sigh that +struck her as genuine.</p> + +<p>She said consolingly, "At least you're a well-preserved ruin, very +popular with tourists.... I wonder what makes you feel so particularly +ruinous to-night?"</p> + +<p>"The fact that you're so damnably young," he muttered.</p> + +<p>She made a little face at him. "I'm not, really. I'm one of those +persons who are born grown-up, you know. Besides, it's a fault that will +disappear in time."</p> + +<p>"Exactly! And before you know it, my dear.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"'The nightingale that in the branches sang—ah, whence and +whither flown again, who knows!'</p></blockquote> + +<p>"You oughtn't to be here with me," he said abruptly. "You ought to be +back there, playing with the little boys and girls."</p> + +<p>"But if the boys and girls bore me—?"</p> + +<p>"Do they?" he demanded. "Those chaps you dance and flirt with—?"</p> + +<p>Joan made him the present of a very special smile. "Perhaps that was to +make other people—jealous."</p> + +<p>"You darling!" he said under his breath; but still he did not touch her.</p> + +<p>"'Love among the Ruins' really isn't very beautiful," he said after a +moment, "or very natural, either—as my sister-in-law was very good to +point out to me only this morning!"</p> + +<p>Joan flushed. So Mrs. Desmond was taking not only a passive but an +active interest in her affairs!</p> + +<p>"Your sister-in-law is needlessly solicitous. I'm not a child like +Betty. I know exactly what I am doing."</p> + +<p>He leaned toward her. "Do you? Do you, I wonder? Joan! Look at me! <i>Do</i> +you know what you are doing—to me?"</p> + +<p>The darkness left only the white outline of their faces visible to each +other. He struck a match, in order to see her better.</p> + +<p>For a moment she tried to meet his eyes. They frightened her even while +they drew her. The blood began to sing in her ears, as it had when he +touched her hand. She wanted him to take her in his arms, to hold +her—and at the same time she wanted to run away and hide. Their long +gaze seemed to let down some barrier within her, to loosen curious +impulses.... Why did he not take her, and have done with it?</p> + +<p>"No," he muttered, as if she had spoken, "Come!"</p> + +<p>Her body made a helpless movement toward him....</p> + +<p>Then the match burnt his fingers and he dropped it.</p> + +<p>"I—I thought you said you had a present for me," she quavered, with a +little breathless laugh. She suspected what the present was, and she +wanted to get this queerly painful scene over.</p> + +<p>But the velvet case he drew out of his pocket was too large for a ring. +It contained a flexible chain of platinum for her wrist, set with jewels +which glittered in the dusk.</p> + +<p>"Oh!—oh, how lovely!" she exclaimed. Even Stefan Nikolai had never +given her anything as splendid as this.</p> + +<p>"May I put it on?" asked Desmond quietly.</p> + +<p>She held out her hand in delight; and suddenly he had seized it and +pushing her sleeve out of the way, was pressing his lips to her inner +arm above the elbow, kissing it hungrily, fiercely, as if he could never +have done.</p> + +<p>She gasped and shrank a little. Getting engaged was not at all as she +had pictured it.</p> + +<p>"Wh—what a funny place to kiss me," she heard herself quavering, "when +I've got a perfectly good mouth!"</p> + +<p>After that she ceased for once to analyze her sensations....</p> + +<p>A gibbous harvest-moon was gazing down at them with its wry face when +the two awoke to the fact that the hour was late and cold, particularly +for a girl dressed airily in chiffon. Joan gazed ruefully at the wreck +of her prettiest gown, limp with dew and crushed beyond recognition. She +felt rather limp and crushed herself, though withal triumphant. One does +not get engaged every night, and it was fitting that certain sacrifices +honor the event.</p> + +<p>The lovers had little to say to each other, as the canoe slipped back +down the whispering river under that gibbous moon. For once Eduard found +no poetry to suit the occasion. Joan, busy with her tumbled hair, hoped +and even prayed that she might be able to slip into her room unobserved. +She hurried nervously out of the dark boathouse, despite entreaties to +wait, and was half way to the house before he caught up with her.</p> + +<p>"Oh, hurry!" she whispered. "They've all gone—every light in the house +is out! It must be after midnight. Ned, what if they've locked the +door?"</p> + +<p>"They haven't. My sister knows we're still out—trust her for that!"</p> + +<p>"But suppose she's waiting up for us?—Oh, Ned, whatever shall I say?"</p> + +<p>"You might tell her, Beautiful," he teased, "that I've had you up under +the beech-tree, kissing roses into your cheeks and stars into your +eyes!—though I think any one who saw you just now might suspect that +without being told."</p> + +<p>She turned suddenly and clung to him. Something of Joan's independence +had already slipped away from her, now that she had some one to cling +to. "Ned, she doesn't like me! How am I ever going to win her over?"</p> + +<p>"Kiss her," he suggested promptly. "Kiss her as you've been kissing me. +It couldn't fail!"</p> + +<p>"Don't tease!" She lifted serious, wide eyes to his, and he saw that +they were wet. "Don't you know that I shall never, never in all my life, +kiss anybody else as I have kissed you?"</p> + +<p>Touched, he drew her closer. She looked just then singularly childish +and confiding. "Dear little girl, that thought herself so grown-up!" he +whispered, his cheek on her tumbled hair.</p> + +<p>When she stirred in his arms he still held her. "What's the use of +hurrying now, Beautiful? The fat's in the fire—and who knows when we +shall have another night like this, all to ourselves?"</p> + +<p>But she would not stay. She felt, obscurely, that they had been engaged +enough for one evening.</p> + +<p>She found herself at last safe in her room—'safe' was the word in her +mind—sitting on the edge of her bed, staring down at her ruined finery +with eyes which did not see it. Her knees felt queerly weak under her, +her lips were bruised, her cheeks and throat and arms burned still with +remembered kisses—She said to herself, like the old woman with a shorn +petticoat, "Can this be I?"</p> + +<p>What had become of her powers of observation, her cool intelligence, her +impersonal decision that it was wiser not to love the man you marry lest +he be given power to hurt you? There was nothing impersonal left in her +feeling for Eduard Desmond! The change had come as suddenly as a summer +thunderstorm. At one moment she was waiting, nervous, a little afraid, +for the event that she had brought to pass. The next, he and she seemed +to have been thrown into a sort of vortex, where they clung to each +other madly, desperately, as if to escape destruction. And she had been +quite as frantic about it as the man....</p> + +<p>She thought, dazedly, that there was a good deal she would be able to +tell the girls at the Convent now on the subject of proposals—yes, and +Miss Louisa M. Alcott, too! Except that school-girls and literary old +maids were not exactly the people with whom one would discuss such +phenomena—</p> + +<p>They had fancied, she and Betty and the rest, that some sort of formula +was necessary to the occasion, a definite question asked and answered, a +more or less formal, "Will you, Amy?" and "Yes, Laurie." Foolish +innocents! She and Ned had not exchanged a sensible word from the moment +they found themselves in each other's arms. Yet the understanding +between them was unmistakable. They were completely engaged—almost, +Joan thought with a shiver, as good as married!</p> + +<p>This, then, was love. A very different thing from what she had expected! +A beautiful, rather terrible thing.... The touch of Puritan in the girl +made her wonder whether anything so beautiful and terrible could be +quite nice.</p> + +<p>She slipped to her knees; not to pray, but simply to remember her +mother. The vision of her mother always came better when she was on her +knees—perhaps because of the old-time association of prayers with +bedtime—and Joan felt a desperate need of her just then. She wanted to +be assured that her mother understood, and had been through it all +herself, and had come out of it—just her mother. She held out her +jeweled bracelet childishly in the dark, as if for somebody to see. She +knelt there tense, every nerve and fibre straining, whispering under her +breath, "Mamma, are you here? Do you know?"</p> + +<p>But the vision failed her. She had instead the warmth of a man's breath +on her closed eyes, the roughness of his cheek on her throat....</p> + +<p>She dropped her head in her arms and began to sob. She was very happy.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + + +<p>It was well into the middle of a fine blue and gold morning when Joan +awoke, to find her coffee cold on the tray beside her bed. She had slept +through even the entrance of the maid who called her; she who had +expected not to sleep at all! An engaged girl, with her lover +waiting—in the garden, perhaps, or down beside the river—their river!</p> + +<p>The happiness of the night before came to her with a rush, and with it +an enormous sense of relief. The thing was done, accomplished!</p> + +<p>She ran to the window and peeped out eagerly, hoping he might be +watching her window. But only the old gardener was in sight, pottering +about among the roses. She blew a kiss from her finger-tips—whether to +the gardener, the roses, or the sparkling water beyond she did not +know—and began hurriedly to dress.</p> + +<p>Singing under her breath, she tripped down the stairs. The big, sunny +house was very still. Joan, going from room to room, gazed about her +appreciatively. Hitherto the house, the garden, the wide, pleasant +countryside had all served merely as a background, of which she was +vaguely aware as actors are of a suitable setting for the play they +produce. Now she felt that she really had leisure to enjoy her +surroundings, which were usually very important to Joan.</p> + +<p>She paused to examine a hunting-print, lingered over a fine etching, +patted affectionately the soft, gay chintzes of the morning-room. What a +relief after such an artificial house as her step-mother's! Nothing here +in the least pretentious, no striving after periods, or artistry, or +even originality, but everything good, well-chosen, used: luxury in +abeyance to comfort; everywhere evidence of travel and culture, and the +long habit of these things.</p> + +<p>Joan drew a breath of satisfaction. Just such a home she hoped to make +for Eduard, though on a smaller scale, perhaps, and with the addition of +a little beauty; since it takes more than wealth to provide that.</p> + +<p>She thought to find him in the billiard-room, or perhaps in a certain +little vine-hung balcony where they sometimes met. But both were empty.</p> + +<p>"Where's everybody this fine morning, Molly!" she asked a housemaid she +met in the hall.</p> + +<p>"Gone over to play golf, like as usual, Miss—'cep'n Mr. Eduard," added +Molly, (the pantry having eyes of its own). "He took the first train to +town—no'm, I guess it was the second train. Anyway it was real early +for Mr. Eduard to be up."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Joan, blankly.</p> + +<p>Then it occurred to her why he might have felt the sudden need of +running into town. Bracelets are all very well in their way, but they +are, after all, noncommittal. She glanced down at her ringless hands, +and laughed.</p> + +<p>The maid smiled, too, as if in sympathy. "That's an awful pretty +bracelet you got on, miss," she was emboldened to say.</p> + +<p>"I like it myself, Molly," she confessed, holding it off at arm's length +the better to admire it.</p> + +<p>She wondered how long it took to get into Philadelphia and back, if one +were in a hurry....</p> + +<p>Presently some of the golfers came in, ravenous for luncheon. In a +sudden accession of shyness, Joan hid her bracelet in her pocket. She +surprised them by offering to go back with them later to the golf-links.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I'll catch a golf-germ," she explained.</p> + +<p>"What, no engagement for this afternoon? Where's our Eduard?" murmured +Mrs. Rossiter, who was one of the party.</p> + +<p>But Joan had learned long since to meet impertinence with a noncommittal +smile.</p> + +<p>After an hour or so of polite attention to the game, however, her +interest flagged. She knew that when Eduard got home he would come to +look for her, and she had a sudden dread of their first meeting before +others, under the observant eyes of May Rossiter in particular. She made +an excuse of letters to write, and walked back through their favorite +woodland, on the chance of his meeting her there. Eduard had rather an +instinct for that sort of thing.</p> + +<p>But when she reached Longmeadow, there was no sign of him. Nor did he +appear that night at dinner. No comment whatever was made upon his +absence.</p> + +<p>Joan became uneasy. Surely it was very strange that he should leave her +for so long a time just now, without explanation!</p> + +<p>An explanation offered itself that drove the blood out of her +cheeks—His habits! What did Betty know about them? Men who drink do not +always choose the bosom of the family in which to indulge their +weakness. In the reaction of emotion upon an artistic temperament, +anything might be happening!</p> + +<p>The thought roused in Joan one of her finest traits: an immediate +response to any call upon her protection. That he had so soon failed her +was no reason for her to fail him. She must try to understand, and +wait....</p> + +<p>People dropped in after dinner, among them as usual Mrs. Rossiter; and +Joan, chatting rather abstractedly with one of her admirers in a corner +of the porch, caught fragments of conversation from the room within, +between Mrs. Rossiter and her hostess.</p> + +<p>"So Ned's torn himself away at last?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, thank Heaven! The Arnolds have postponed their cruise three times, +waiting for him. Why people put up with his shilly-shallying, I'm sure I +don't know!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Ned has his uses. They say Fanny Arnold.... But what do you suppose +the Darcy girl...."</p> + +<p>Their voices dropped lower, and Joan heard no more....</p> + +<p>She felt for the moment absolutely numb. She was like a person who has +been shot, without having time to ascertain where. All the pride in her +gathered to meet this blow without flinching. People must not +suspect—they must not suspect.</p> + +<p>She went on chatting, laughing, jesting.... He had gone away for good! +Without a word to her, he had gone away. He had known last night that he +was going, and that he would not come back. She, Joan Darcy, had been +jilted. She, too proud to live on a stranger's bounty, had offered +herself, unasked, to a man who did not want her!...</p> + +<p>Somebody begged her to sing, and brought a guitar. Hers was a slight +voice, uncultivated, but with something about it, as about Joan, that +attracted attention. People listened to her. She had that curious +<i>élan</i>, that sense of being borne on some outside power, that comes to +certain natures from the response of an audience.</p> + +<p>Joan touched heights that evening. To some brains, suffering is an +incomparable stimulant. Even Betty, with the remembrance of certain wild +orgies at school, when quiet Joan Darcy had amazed nuns and girls alike +by a sudden transfiguration, had never gaged to the full her friend's +possibilities. She sang for them daringly whatever came into her head, +negro catches, rollicking Irish lilts, wicked little songs of the +streets and alleys. Under Betty's urgings, she exhibited a talent for +mimicry which had occasionally reduced the good Sisters almost to +apoplexy.</p> + +<p>She showed them her father during a political campaign, addressing his +constituency under the handicap of a cold in the head. One could see the +Major's urbane periods, his mellifluous hand, his tossing topknot—She +showed them the Mother Superior, called in to quell a dormitory riot, +endeavoring while dodging pillows to maintain proper religious +"detachment from place." As an encore she gave them Eduard Desmond, +conducting a sunset <i>à deux</i>, with assistance from the poets—a bit of +recklessness that brought shouts of joy from the audience, and produced +in Mrs. Rossiter's mocking eye something like respect.</p> + +<p>"Joie, how <i>dared</i> you!" cried Betty, breathless with laughter, as she +went upstairs with her arm about her friend. "It was Uncle Neddy to his +very hands; that way he has of touching people inadvertently, as if it +were quite by accident. You ought to have seen May Rossiter's face!"</p> + +<p>"I did," said Joan grimly.—Something of the sustaining force had begun +to leave her, and all she asked of life for the moment was to be left +alone.</p> + +<p>But Betty was too delighted with her friend's triumph to be easily +quenched. "It was like old times!" she cried. "Dear old times at school, +when there weren't any men about to spoil things, and the nuns let go +and had a good time like anybody!... Nobody here'll ever think of you +again as just a flirt and a man-grabber! Why, do you know what that man +who came in with Mrs. Jameson said? (He's a clever person, a professor +or something.) He said to Mother, 'Mrs. Desmond, that girl's got a touch +of genius!'"</p> + +<p>"Genius for what—making believe? Much good it does me," said Joan +bitterly.... Would the other never go?</p> + +<p>Betty hugged her. "And to think we were afraid you'd take Uncle Neddy +seriously! Oh, if he could only have seen you!—Jo, <i>I</i> know why you +were in such wild spirits to-night. I'm not going to ask any questions, +because Mother made me promise not to. But you can't deny there is a +sort of coincidence between the fact that you spent the evening up the +river with him, and that to-day he's gone!—now can you?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Joan, "I can't deny that there's—a sort of coincidence."</p> + +<p>"Good-by forever! Good-by-yi-yi forever,'" warbled Betty after Tosti, +somewhat infected by her friend's recent performances. "Fancy the +Irresistible coming another cropper, and at the hands of a mere infant +like you! I suppose I ought to be sorry for him, but I'm not. It'll +teach him to keep his hands off <i>my</i> friends, anyway!" she exclaimed +vindictively.</p> + +<p>"I gather," murmured Joan with a pale smile, "that you did not +altogether fancy me as an aunt?"</p> + +<p>"Rather not! I prefer you 'as is.' Plenty of aunts in the world, and not +so many Joans."</p> + +<p>She went at last, leaving the heroine of the evening to a sleepless +night.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + + +<p>Morning did not bring the word from Eduard Desmond that Joan told +herself must surely come; the explanation, the excuse, no matter how +bald, which she might go through the form of accepting. Nor did the day +following bring any message.</p> + +<p>On the third day, however, came a basket of candy, a superlative affair +of blue straw, tied with wide blue ribbons and quite realistic +forget-me-nots. Within was the expected communication:</p> + +<blockquote><p>I never say the ugly word "good-by," if I can help it, +Beautiful. Better to keep intact the memory of our last evening +together.</p> + +<p>From my heart I thank you for what you have given me. Such +experiences do not come twice in a lifetime.—I have learned.</p> + +<p>And you, sweetest of them all, what have you learned? At least +to remember me, I hope! <span class="smcap">Eduard.</span></p></blockquote> + +<p>Joan read this over and over, incredulously—The cruelty of it, the +sheer, epicurean viciousness, appalled her. She said to herself, like +the man in Hedda Gabler, "But people don't do such things!"</p> + +<p>Evidently they did, and escaped unscathed. She clenched her hands +helplessly. Oh, to be able to tell her father! A rush of primitive +feeling came over her, almost of blood-lust. She wanted vengeance on the +man who had surfeited himself with her innocence, her youth, it seemed +to poor Joan her very soul—and had made amends by sending her a box of +candy! The candy seemed somehow a worse insult than the jewel he had +given her. It mocked her with its triviality. Bon-bons in return +for—what?</p> + +<p>With a groan she swept the offering off the table on to the floor; and +treading confections underfoot at every step, she fled across her room +to the shelter of her bed, where she flung herself face downward.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Why? Why?</span> was the despairing cry of her spirit. How had he dared to +treat her so lightly? What had she done?</p> + +<p>The answer was not far to seek. With a shudder she remembered her +careful study of the rôle she had chosen to play, her considered +coquetries and sophistications, even her dressing, the display of silken +ankles, of bared arm, her modest décolletage—all weapons she had +employed not quite in ignorance. Precocious instinct and the comments of +her step-mother had taught her much. She had deliberately, and for her +own ends, joined the order of the Brazen Hussies—With this result!</p> + +<p>Joan faced her lesson squarely. But she felt sick, degraded, literally +soiled. This was the sort of thing that happened to girls who "fell."</p> + +<p>She had, for all her reading, a quite hazy idea of what "falling" meant. +For a frantic moment (it must be remembered that Joan's education had +been conducted by religious ladies who paste decent tissue-paper skirts +over offending illustrations in the physiology books)—she struggled +with a nightmare horror that she had perhaps "fallen" herself, that such +a degradation of the spirit might even have physical results....</p> + +<p>"No, no, <i>no</i>!" gasped Joan, "not when I hate him so! It's impossible!"</p> + +<p>For if, according to a rather touching convent theory, it is love alone +which calls children into being, surely hate must have the opposite +effect?</p> + +<p>Joan had not pursued this line of mental research to her usual lengths. +Certain things, it appeared, such as miracles and the power of prayer +and all phenomena embraced under the generic title of Love, were better +taken entirely on trust.</p> + +<p>With ashen cheeks and a heart thumping with terror, Joan put her hands +over her ears to shut out the sound of her own thoughts. It was the +first time in her life she had come face to face with the meaning of the +word "fear." And that the fear was childish, made it none the less real. +Nineteen, not ninety, is the age of tragedy. There are few suicides +among the old....</p> + +<p>She did not hear a rap twice repeated, nor the opening of the door. +Somebody peeped in, saw the sobbing figure on the bed, the scattered +bon-bons, the crumpled note on the floor. Then came a louder knock.</p> + +<p>Joan sat up, and cried in a panic, "Don't come in!"</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Rossiter chose to misunderstand her. "Did you say come in?" she +inquired cheerfully. "I hope so, because nobody else seems to be at +home, and I'm pining for company."</p> + +<p>She paused as Joan sank back in despair, hiding her ravaged face in her +handkerchief.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter, dear? Headache?" she questioned kindly, adding with +a glance at the overturned basket, "Too much candy, perhaps?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," gulped Joan, fighting for self-control "Too much candy!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rossiter selected a <i>marron</i> from the floor with care, wiped it +daintily, and began to eat. "This looks," she said, "like one of Ned +Desmond's offerings. He's such an artist about everything! Who but he +would have thought of selecting a basket to match your eyes?"</p> + +<p>Joan lay still, and hated her. She thought of several biting remarks she +might make to this woman who had come to gloat over her; but +unfortunately she could not yet trust her voice to utter them.</p> + +<p>"So you sent him away after all?" continued the voice smilingly, "Led +him on, and made a fool out of our poor dear Ned, and then sent him +about his business? Naughty Joan!"</p> + +<p>Something impelled the girl to utter frankness. She was done with +acting. "I didn't, and you know I didn't," she gulped. "I accepted him. +I was engaged to him!"</p> + +<p>"Engaged?"</p> + +<p>"Yes!—and then the next day he was gone."</p> + +<p>"Stole away," murmured Mrs. Rossiter amusedly. "That was rather crude of +Eduard. He doesn't usually run to such lengths.... You mean he actually +in so many words invited you to <i>marry</i> him?"</p> + +<p>Joan covered her eyes again. "I suppose not," she said in a small, +miserable voice. "No, he didn't. But he—he kissed me as if we were +engaged, and I kissed him back!"</p> + +<p>"Oh," murmured the other. "You find engaged kisses so very different, +then, from the other kind?"</p> + +<p>Joan cried indignantly, "I don't know anything about the other kind! +I've never kissed a man before in my life."</p> + +<p>"No? 'More kissed against than kissing,' perhaps?"</p> + +<p>The girl lifted her chin as haughtily as it is possible to lift a chin +that is quivering with held-in sobs. "I have never been kissed +either—except on the hand or the ear or something, which doesn't +count."</p> + +<p>"No, that hardly counts," agreed her inquisitor, looking at the girl +quite curiously. "See here," she asked in another tone, "how old are +you, Miss Darcy?"</p> + +<p>"Nineteen."</p> + +<p>"Hmmn! Younger than I thought. Still, a Southern girl—"</p> + +<p>"Can be just as decent as any other kind!" cried angry Joan. "Anyway, +I'm only part a Southern girl. But I know! Lots of them are just as nice +about such things as Betty, for instance."</p> + +<p>"Nice, of course," agreed Mrs. Rossiter. "And tremendously attractive. +But just for that reason a little more—well, experienced, don't you +think? We get our experience later, perhaps.... And you seemed +particularly well-seasoned, able to take care of yourself, playing them +off against each other like a little veteran. I've told Jane Desmond so +more than once. She wanted to warn you—but I told her you knew the +ropes."</p> + +<p>"I didn't," said Joan tremulously, "Warn me of what?"</p> + +<p>"Why, of Ned. She was afraid you might really land him. The wariest of +fish takes the hook at last!"</p> + +<p>Joan winced at the remark, but she was too busy getting to the bottom of +things to resent it.</p> + +<p>"Why did she object to my marrying him?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rossiter stared. "Good Lord! Well, because she's got a girl of her +own, for one thing. Because she's married to a Desmond herself, for +another. She knows the breed, poor Jane!"</p> + +<p>Light was breaking on Joan. "You mean—she objected for <i>my</i> sake?"</p> + +<p>"Of course!" said Mrs. Rossiter rather impatiently. "Ned's all right as +a brother-in-law, useful to have about, to run errands, etc. One has to +have a man in the house, and she's really rather fond of him. But to +marry him off to a fresh young girl like you!—No, no, Jane's not that +sort."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Joan faintly. She began to realize that instead of +antagonism, it had been friendliness that watched her, motherly, anxious +kindness, which she had been too blind to understand.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mrs. Rossiter," she cried tremulously, "I've been horrid!"</p> + +<p>"Bless you, no. It's Ned who was horrid, I suspect—men are. Votes for +Women, eh? Be glad you've found it out in time.... But you fooled me, +you know; and to do Ned justice, I think you fooled him. He's not +altogether a cad. I've never known him try cradle-snatching before. He +usually prefers to play the game with people who understand, married +women or widdy-ladies of mature years, or—well, the professional +charmer."</p> + +<p>"Ugh! You speak as if there'd been dozens of us!"</p> + +<p>"So there have. Dozens! And there are dozens of him, too. Amorists, you +know, dilettantes, non-eligibles—the bane of all good chaperones. +'Gather the rosebuds while ye may' effect. They make quite a business of +it, I assure you; or rather an art. 'The secret of enjoyment is to know +the exact moment when one has attained the maximum—and to stop there'! +Haven't you heard him say it?" She laughed rather mirthlessly, and Joan +did not join her.</p> + +<p>After a moment the older woman left the arm of the chair where she had +been perched boyishly, with swinging leg, nibbling her <i>marron</i>. She +walked about the room, and then came and sat beside Joan on the bed. Her +voice had become rather shy.</p> + +<p>"Joan," she asked, "did you—care, my dear?"</p> + +<p>The girl turned her burning face away. "I don't know," she whispered. +"How does one know?—I thought about him all the time, and sometimes I +didn't want him at all, and sometimes—I did.—And now I wish my father +would <i>kill</i> him!"</p> + +<p>The other shook her head. "That's not it, then. You'd know! Even at the +worst," she said quietly, "if my father had killed him, I should have +wanted—to kill my father."</p> + +<p>Joan forgot herself in sheer astonishment. "You!" she cried. "But I +thought it was you who declined to marry him, even after you'd got a +divorce to do it?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rossiter smiled queerly.</p> + +<p>"Did Ned tell you that?"</p> + +<p>Joan, much embarrassed, explained the Convent impression of Mr. Desmond +and his broken heart.</p> + +<p>The other laughed. "So that's the idea he has allowed to get abroad? +Nice of him. Ned always was a gentleman—and I suppose it does put him +in a better light, too—But unfortunately the facts of the case are +otherwise. I did get a divorce to marry him—not that he suggested it, +oh, dear, no! That would have been too crude. It simply seemed to me the +honest thing to do, and my husband agreed with me—So I took up my +residence in Dakota. And when I came back, quite free and marriageable, +Eduard happened to be in Brittany, painting."</p> + +<p>"And then?—" prompted Joan, round-eyed at this little glimpse behind +the scenes.</p> + +<p>"That's all. There wasn't any 'then.' Eduard remained in Brittany, +painting. The episode was over, you see. Presently I married Rossiter. +One couldn't pine away like a love-lorn housemaid!"</p> + +<p>"Don't laugh," said Joan hoarsely. "It's too awful!" Her hand gripped +the other's. "Oh, how can you bear to <i>speak</i> to him?"</p> + +<p>May Rossiter shrugged. "You don't suppose it lasts, you funny innocent? +Besides, though he did cost me a few illusions and some suffering and a +reputation (what's a reputation among friends?), I owe Ned Desmond one +very good turn. Jim Rossiter's the best husband of my acquaintance."</p> + +<p>She leaned over swiftly and kissed Joan on the cheek.</p> + +<p>"So you see you're not the only silly little simpleton who learns her +ropes by tripping on them. Makes you feel better, doesn't it? Of course! +That's why I told you.... Look here, what's the use of wasting all this +perfectly good candy? Jane's floors are above suspicion. Let's pick it +up and take it downstairs and make a Roman holiday, shall we?"</p> + +<p>Between them, with some laughter and a very real sense of comradeship, +they restored Eduard's peace-offering to its basket. Then Joan +remembered her bracelet.</p> + +<p>"What shall I do with it?" she asked, aghast. "If I return it now, it +will look—offended, as if I had taken him seriously!"</p> + +<p>"Which would never do," Mrs. Rossiter was quick to agree. She examined +the bracelet with interest. "Sapphires, emeralds, nice little +diamonds—dear, dear! And a Chartier setting. Ned must have had it +rather badly. He never gave <i>me</i> anything so compromising! Keep it, of +course," she advised cynically. "It's a nice bit of jewelry, and you may +as well have something decent for a souvenir."</p> + +<p>But Joan's hardihood was not equal to that.</p> + +<p>"Well, then"—the other's eye sparkled with sudden malice—"why not give +it to me for a parting present! Splendid! Fancy his expression when he +recognizes his <i>gage d'amour</i> glittering on my wrist, of all wrists in +the world! And, believe me, he shall recognize it—What ho! Votes for +Women!"</p> + +<p>She laughed until she cried.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>When Joan said good-by to Longmeadow some days later—not so soon as to +give her departure the appearance of flight—she left trailing clouds of +glory. The rumor had got about, thanks perhaps to Mrs. Rossiter, that +the redoubtable Eduard had met his Waterloo at the hands of the Kentucky +girl, which seemed not to detract from her popularity among Eduard's +friends, male or female. She became quite legendary in the countryside.</p> + +<p>Betty, fully restored to her earlier allegiance, parted from her with +tears, and Mrs. Desmond made her promise to visit them soon again.</p> + +<p>But it was a promise Joan knew she would not have the courage to keep. +And when she had waved her last gay farewell, and thrown her last kiss +impartially out of the window to the group who had come into town to see +her off, she settled back in the train which had brought her with such +high hopes to her first failure, and said aloud, "Thank goodness that's +over!"</p> + +<p>"Pardon <i>me</i>—did you speak?" murmured a young man in the seat in front +of her, turning round with a start; a wide-eared young man whom Joan +recognized.</p> + +<p>"Goodness!" she said in some dismay. "You seem to dog my footsteps, Mr. +Blair. There's no escaping you!"</p> + +<p>"Looks that way, don't it?" he grinned apologetically. "I've been in +Philadelphia on a big order—Landed it, too!" he added in irrepressible +triumph.</p> + +<p>"Which is more than I did," sighed Joan; and guessing from her +expression that a jest was intended, Mr. Blair laughed long and loudly. +He was always very keen on the scent of a jest.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + + +<p>It was owing to this fortuitous train journey that one night, some weeks +later, Mr. Archibald Blair found himself moving in what he considered +very high society indeed. In the years when he had peddled papers on the +street corners, or padded around with them on thin and sturdy legs of a +Sabbath dawn, so that the world might have its news with its coffee and +griddle-cakes for breakfast, Archie had amused himself and added to his +mastery of his native tongue by reading an occasional account of a Galt +House Ball.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"Social Event of the Season Magnificent Affair Given Last +Evening To Mark The Début into Society of" etc., etc.</p></blockquote> + +<p>And here he was himself, part and parcel of a Galt House Ball! It was +quite amazing.</p> + +<p>Archibald Blair was no snob; but to him, as to many another of the +world's workers, "Society" represented a world apart, a sort of +fairyland in which creatures of an order far superior to ordinary humans +lived and moved and had their lovely being—feminine creatures, of +course. About the male of the species he had no illusions. They were +merely the same Charlies, Toms, and Georges one knew down town, and with +whom one had played baseball or marbles or shinny, transformed by glad +rags (the language is Archie's) into temporary black-tailed butterflies. +They did not fool him for a moment. When he caught a familiar and +surprised eye belonging to one of them, which he did more than once, he +grinned and winked. In return, the owner of the eye called out, "Why, +hello, Arch!" or, "Glad to see you, Blair!" in very friendly fashion, +for Archibald was a popular youth among his acquaintance.</p> + +<p>But they did not introduce him to their girls.</p> + +<p>Archie was not chagrined. On the rare occasions when he took Miss Emma +from the cashier's desk, or Miss Grace, the prettiest office +stenographer, to a dance-hall, he was careful himself about whom he +introduced to them. Fellows were often well enough with fellows, when +they wouldn't do for one's lady-friends. Girls had to be choosy. (Again +the language is Archibald's.)</p> + +<p>He stood alone on the edge of the whirling throng with a pleased, +unconscious smile on his face, watching for the girl he had come to see, +wondering if it would be all right if he asked her to dance. In the +society he had hitherto frequented—or rather sampled, and found not +altogether satisfactory—a fellow danced only with the girl he had taken +with him, or perhaps, if it had been arranged beforehand, with the +partner of some friend, who in turn danced with his partner. Here things +seemed to be done differently. A line of young men hovered on the edge +of the dancers, and every now and then one would swoop in amongst them +and seize the lady of his choice away from her partner seemingly by main +force, a sort of modern Rape of the Sabines.</p> + +<p>"Gee!" said Archibald to himself, watching. "Gee! But that takes a +nerve."</p> + +<p>However, life on the whole does take a nerve, as he had long since +discovered.</p> + +<p>He had, he supposed, as good a right to try it as the rest. The engraved +card of invitation was in his pocket—nobody had taken it from him at +the door. His broadcloth tails were as long and as neatly fitting as +anybody's—the invitation having arrived at a fortunate time when the +order he had landed in Philadelphia made it possible to buy himself a +hitherto unnecessary dress suit. It is true that he had used up almost a +box of lawn ties before he could get the proper touch to his bow, and +even now the result should have proved indubitably that he was not a +necktie drummer. He made a mental note to ask his friend Jakie +Florsheimer of the Gents' Furnishing at Morehouse's what he could do to +keep the blamed thing from riding up on him. Still, his final view of +himself in the washstand mirror had not been discouraging.</p> + +<p>"Some boy," he had murmured to himself, in the absence of a less partial +critic.</p> + +<p>So now he tensed the muscles of his jaw, and waited his chance, +nervously.</p> + +<p>How wonderful they were, these slim, delicate creatures whirling by, +with their white arms and backs, their tiny feet slippered in silver and +gold, their soft laughter, their eager, luring eyes smiling over the +shoulders of the fortunate youths who embraced them! Archibald grew +quite dizzy with the scene, and stood at gaze as certain dazzled +mariners may have gazed upon the Lorelei, to their undoing.</p> + +<p>"This is the life!" he said to himself, decidedly. There was not a pay +dance-hall in town that could touch it.</p> + +<p>Other connoisseurs more experienced than Archibald Blair have looked +with delight upon a Galt House Ball—and will look no more, alas! Along +the broad corridor behind the ballroom picked experts were wont to +congregate early in every season to inspect Louisville's latest +contribution to the beauty of the race, comparing points and +conformation, class, speed, and endurance, as knowingly as such things +are later discussed at Churchill Downs. Indeed, Louisville may be said +to be, in some matters, a city of experts. The youth who sells you your +cigar, the newsie who provides you with an evening edition, should +without a moment's hesitation be able to tell you the name of two things +on demand: the Derby winner and the season's beauty.</p> + +<p>So Archibald was in a measure prepared for what he saw. Anticipations of +it had kept him awake at night. His trouble was in the midst of so much +loveliness to fix his ravished attention upon the finding of one face.</p> + +<p>When he found it at last, however, his eye did not again wander. He was +a young man whose head rarely contained more than one idea at a time—a +fact which perhaps accounted for his growing success in the selling end +of the business.</p> + +<p>He let her pass the first time out of sheer pleasure of the sight of her +in motion. Joan was wearing, as she usually wore nowadays, an odd shade +of blue, very much the color of the orchids at her waist. In the hand on +her partner's arm she carried another bouquet, of violets; and the +second time she passed she had exchanged this for a third, of pink +roses. From which it may be gathered that Louisville was at last waking +up to the attractions of our heroine.</p> + +<p>Archibald wished suddenly that he had sent her a bouquet himself, but +decided that she might have thought it "fresh."</p> + +<p>"Unless I was to send it just 'From a Friend'?" he thought, his eye +brightening.</p> + +<p>She had changed partners on each appearance, as well as bouquets; and +the third time she was dancing with a portly gentleman who one-stepped +so majestically, so benignly, that their passage down the room was a +sort of royal progress.</p> + +<p>"Why, the gay old guy!" thought Archibald, surprised; and decided that +this was the moment for his grand coup. Girls like that should not have +to dance with parties old enough to know better.</p> + +<p>He stepped up to the couple as he had seen others do, and slapped Major +Darcy on the back, remarking with the excessive nonchalance which is the +result of nervousness, "So long, old top! Back to the tall timbers for +you."</p> + +<p>The Major turned and stared, really uncertain as to whether it could be +himself who was thus addressed.</p> + +<p>"It's Mr. Blair, Dad," explained Joan hurriedly, "who was so nice to me +on the train; don't you remember?"</p> + +<p>The Major still stared. But innate hospitality triumphed: and perhaps +there was something disarming, too, in the wide-apart front teeth of Mr. +Blair, which, as Joan had previously observed, gave him an oddly +innocent expression.</p> + +<p>"Very well, young top!" he murmured courteously, "I surrender my +daughter to your mercies."</p> + +<p>The two danced away, Blair holding his prize as if he did not know quite +what to do with her now that he had got her.</p> + +<p>"For goodness' sake, take <i>hold</i> of me!" she instructed after a moment. +"I feel as if I were about to float out of your grasp. I won't break, +you know!"</p> + +<p>Archie obediently held her tighter, murmuring, "Pardon <i>me</i>!"</p> + +<p>He danced surprisingly well, as if he were really listening to the +music, Joan thought. She did not trouble to talk to him, therefore.</p> + +<p>"So that was your father," he said after a long and anxious silence. +"Why, he's a peach, hopping around like that at his age!"</p> + +<p>"Rather more of a pear, don't you think? As to figure?" suggested Joan; +for the Major's tendency to <i>embonpoint</i> had increased remarkably since +his marriage.</p> + +<p>Blair threw back his head and gently roared. He was one of the people +who always made Joan feel herself a wit of the first water.</p> + +<p>Yet she was a little sorry he had come to-night. She had sent him the +card to her début ball by way of repaying an obligation. He had been +very thoughtful on the train about getting her fruit and papers—almost +too thoughtful; and had insisted, somewhat to Joan's embarrassment, on +paying for the two meals they had taken together in the dining-car. She +did not care to remain in debt to a stranger; hence the invitation. But +she had not, somehow, expected him to take advantage of it.</p> + +<p>Since he was here, however, she must do what she could for him. She knew +what it was to be a stranger in a gay throng.</p> + +<p>"Do you know any girls?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Not to speak to—though I've seen some of the young ladies on the +street, of course. This is the first time I've ever been out in +Society," he explained simply.</p> + +<p>"Yes? I'm a débutante too, you know. And how do you like Society, so +far?"</p> + +<p>"Fine, fine!" he told her. "Better even than I thought it was. Makes the +movie pictures of it look sort of silly."</p> + +<p>"You ought to go to the Horse Show next week if you find this sort of +thing interesting. I hear it is to be something splendiferous!"</p> + +<p>"I will," he assured her, earnestly.</p> + +<p>"And now I'd better introduce you to some other people." She shook her +head smilingly at a youth who was about to touch him on the shoulder. +After all, one owes something to the duties of hospitality. "Though +really you don't have to <i>meet</i> girls at a thing like this before you +ask them to dance. I don't know the names of half the men I dance with."</p> + +<p>"You don't?" he repeated incredulously, wondering what Miss Emma or Miss +Grace would think of that! He decided not to tell them. "I reckon I'd +rather be introduced first though, if you don't mind," he +murmured—"I—I wouldn't know just what to call 'em."</p> + +<p>Laughing, she stopped with the music, and on an impulse of sheer +mischief guided him toward the exclusive young person who had once made +her unhappy at the Country Club, one Miss Emily Carmichael. She was not +too exclusive, it appeared, to come to the Darcy ball; which she did not +seem to be thoroughly enjoying, however.</p> + +<p>"Ask her to dance—she needs it," murmured Joan <i>sotto voce</i> as they +approached.</p> + +<p>"Sure thing," replied Archibald; and as soon as Joan had pronounced the +formula: "Miss Carmichael, Mr. Blair," he said promptly, "Be pleased to +have the pleasure of the next turn, Miss Carmichael."</p> + +<p>Joan went off with another partner, chuckling. She felt that scores were +even.</p> + +<p>Blair's face fell at this desertion. "Oh, but say," he called after her, +"can't I dance with you any more?"</p> + +<p>"Whenever you like! Just come and tap my partner and carry me off as you +did before. But," she added with a parting twinkle, "I don't believe I'd +call him 'old top' again!"</p> + +<p>Archibald flushed and understood. "All right," he said meekly. "I'll +just call him 'Say,' instead."</p> + +<p>He tapped her partner with some frequency after that, though not often +enough to be annoying; and Joan also noticed amusedly that he danced a +great deal with Miss Carmichael, who seemed quite willing. Exclusiveness +was evidently in abeyance at a ball.</p> + +<p>Sometimes when they passed each other she called out pleasantly, "Having +a good time, débutant?" and he answered in the vernacular of the moment, +"Fine and dandy!"</p> + +<p>She said, during one of their brief turns together, "You seem to be +getting on beautifully with that girl I introduced you to."</p> + +<p>"Who? Miss Carmichael? She's all to the mustard, isn't she! Asked me to +come and eat supper with her to-night."</p> + +<p>"She did?" exclaimed Joan, surprised.</p> + +<p>"Yes. You see I know her brother—put on gloves with him sometimes at +the Y. M. C. A. And it seems he's told her about me," explained Archie.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" Joan looked with new interest at his broad shoulders, his +straight, supple back. She understood suddenly the lift and spring and +untiring ease of his dancing, which was not grace exactly, but something +just as good. He was an athlete. She began to feel quite pleased with +her protégé. With a little pruning as to speech and general behavior, he +would make a rather presentable ballroom adjunct. His manner with women +was really nice.</p> + +<p>One other besides Joan watched Archie's progress with interest. At the +door of the dressing-room Ellen Neal, in her Sunday costume of +claret-colored serge with collar and cuffs of homemade Battenberg lace, +gazed proudly out upon the scene of her nurseling's triumphs, having +been unable to resist Mrs. Darcy's invitation to assist on so memorable +an occasion. She had removed countless evening wraps and carriage +slippers, assisted deftly, albeit with prim lips, at the powdering of +countless backs and bosoms, and now followed with adoring eyes a certain +slim blue figure that appeared and disappeared among the dancers.</p> + +<p>"Land," she thought. "If her mama could only see her now! The swellest +among the swell! And with a dress on her little back that cost that +woman a hundred dollars, if it cost a cent. She's got as many partners +as any of 'em—and why wouldn't she, then, I'd like to know?"</p> + +<p>Archibald had promised to look her up during the evening, but boylike +had forgotten the old friend in quest of the new. She forgave him for +it, though she would have liked very much to exchange impressions with +somebody. Her pride was bursting for utterance.</p> + +<p>Presently he came and stood quite near her, with only the width of the +corridor between them. His back was turned as he stood looking out over +the ballroom floor.</p> + +<p>"Sst" called Ellen. "Psst! Mr. Archie!" She dared not leave her post for +fear people would come for wraps or powder, and find only a colored +woman to wait on them, which would never do. (Ellen continued to regard +the colored race as a cross between the monkey and the magpie, with +leanings toward the magpie.)</p> + +<p>"Psst! Hey there!" she called.</p> + +<p>But Archie's mind was far away from Ellen Neal, and he did not hear her. +He was anathematizing Jakie Florsheimer of the Gents' Furnishings at the +moment for not having suggested white kid gloves to him. More than once +his clumsy bare hand, struggle against it as he might, had come in +contact with the delicate bare shoulder of one of his partners; and +Archibald felt that if such a catastrophe should occur when he was +dancing with Miss Darcy, the earth might just as well open and engulf +him permanently. She would never forgive him—and indeed why should she? +A man ought to have known by instinct about those reverential gloves.</p> + +<p>So he stood frowning out upon the ballroom, heedless of Ellen's hisses; +and in this way the old woman happened to be the unnoted witness of a +rather curious scene.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Darcy came tripping down the corridor alone, for the moment, having +been out to inspect preparations for supper. She did not believe in +leaving so important a matter as supper entirely to the hands of paid +assistants, no matter how well paid. She was resplendent in rose brocade +and spangles, her small plump feet encased in cloth-of-gold, a little +fishtail train of cloth-of-gold whisking behind her. Her hair positively +glittered, it was so golden, and her face was overspread with a rosy +bloom that always intrigued her step-daughter because of its unnatural +evenness, as if she had not simply rouged, but dipped her face in a +permanent elixir of youth that outdid youth itself. Joan had never +caught her with her face bare, as it were, even at the most unlikely +hours.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Darcy paused at sight of a young man standing by himself, gazing +out with a wistful frown at the gaiety before him; and her hospitable +heart smote her. She tapped his arm with her fan.</p> + +<p>"Kind o' lonesome?" she said. "Come on in and dance with me."</p> + +<p>He turned with a start. His eyes took her in from top to toe, and +suddenly narrowed. "No, thanks," he said curtly. "What are <i>you</i> doing +here, anyway?"</p> + +<p>Effie May drew back. She looked, as Ellen expressed it to herself, +"flabbergasted."</p> + +<p>"Why! Who do you think I am?"</p> + +<p>He continued to stare at her with those narrowed, steady eyes.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, and I don't care. It's easy enough to see <i>what</i> you are! +You'd better go, hadn't you?" suggested Archibald grimly. "This is a +private affair. Invitation only."</p> + +<p>By this time the startled lady had recovered her poise. "You're making a +mistake, young man," she replied quietly, "This happens to be <i>my</i> +private affair. I am Mrs. Darcy."</p> + +<p>It was his turn to be flabbergasted.</p> + +<p>"<i>Her mother?</i>"</p> + +<p>"Miss Darcy's step-mother," said Effie May, with some dignity.</p> + +<p>She continued to meet his gaze, which did not lower, though he had gone +quite pale.</p> + +<p>"The joke's on me," he muttered at last. "It's I who'd better go, I +guess. Pardon <i>me</i>!"</p> + +<p>She inclined her head without speaking.</p> + +<p>He still continued to look at her, as if puzzled. "My mistake," he said +again. "If your husband wants me at any time, my name is Blair, Mrs. +Darcy—Archibald Blair."</p> + +<p>"He won't want you," said Effie May. "Good night."</p> + +<p>Ellen Neal, aghast, watched him turn on his heel and leave.</p> + +<p>"Land!" she said to herself. "Land sakes! He's gone and done for himself +now, the young idjit!"</p> + +<p>When she turned again, she saw Mrs. Darcy refreshing herself with a +glass of "Dick Fizz" at the punch bowl. She seemed to need it.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> + + +<p>But Effie May's amiability was proof even against this trying episode. +She said to Joan, the day after the ball, when they were talking things +over in unusual intimacy, "By the way, who's the young fellow that +danced so much with you last night—a sort of broad, odd chap he was, +with ears? I don't think I've seen him before."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Blair," Joan smiled at the description. "He danced with me so +much because he didn't know any one else."</p> + +<p>"A stranger here? Where does he come from?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know—the slums, I fancy. Ask Ellen Neal. He's a pal of hers. +But he's a Louisville product, I believe."</p> + +<p>Effie May glanced at her casually, "Didn't you like him, dearie?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, well enough. Did you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the other, "I did. He's honest, and he stands up so +straight—doesn't sort of droop over a girl as if his spine was feeble, +like some of 'em do. I like a chap to stand up on his own two pins."</p> + +<p>"But his ears, Effie May!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, what's ears? Just means that his mother forgot to tuck 'em +into his cap when he was a baby. Now if his eyes bulged out, that would +be another thing. You look out for any man with a bulging eye, Joan."</p> + +<p>"Very well," she agreed, "I will. What's dangerous about a bulging eye?"</p> + +<p>"Stoopidity, girlie. Just plain bone-headedness. And if there's anything +in the world more dangerous than that, I don't know it!—Let's ask your +eary young man again to something, shall we?"</p> + +<p>"I begin to think he's <i>your</i> eary young man!" smiled Joan.</p> + +<p>Sometimes she almost forgot herself and liked her step-mother. There was +something so human about the woman....</p> + +<p>So it happened that Mr. Blair was delighted and amazed and a little +perturbed to receive a few days later a note from Joan Darcy, inviting +him to sit on a certain evening in the Darcy box at the impending Horse +Show. One of the Darcy guests had failed at the last moment, and Joan +had accepted the suggestion that she ask her protégé.</p> + +<p>He rushed downstairs to spread the glad tidings to Ellen, who was in +turn surprised and a little perturbed. She had not imagined "that woman" +so forgiving. But then Ellen was a person who did nothing by halves. +Justice to the enemy was not in her creed. Where she hated, she hated.</p> + +<p>"Just look at it!" exulted Mr. Blair, exhibiting his note. "She asks for +'the pleasure of my company'! She 'hopes a previous engagement won't +prevent'! (It won't.) All in her own hand, mind you!"</p> + +<p>"What did you expect—typewriting?" commented Ellen, a little tartly. +She was always tart when pleased.</p> + +<p>Next arose the question of what to wear. Those people who fancy that +this question confines itself to the lighter-minded sex have much to +learn. They have not watched a youth of twenty-five—or thirty-five—or +sixty-five—trying to ascertain in advance whether long or short tails +shall grace a particular occasion. And if there is a more pitiable +spectacle than the misery of a man appearing, say, in sack-suit and +brown boots, where others of his sex gleam as to bosom and foot-gear, +the author has yet to see it. Whereas any woman worth her salt, who +happens to be dressed in hat and jacket among much décolletage, can +manage to make the other women present feel immodest.</p> + +<p>Ellen Neal was of no help to Mr. Blair at this crisis. He consulted once +more the oracle, Jakie Florsheimer. Archie had been to the Horse Show +before, of course, but merely to see horses. This was a very different +matter. Even Mr. Florsheimer admitted himself doubtful.</p> + +<p>"You see, it's like this," he said, scratching his curly head. "If you +was to go in a sporting way, y' see, I'd say a natty little sack, +checked maybe, with one of our $3.99 plaid vests, and a Derby hat. But +sitting in one of them boxes with society girls, all dolled up like they +are, y' see—honest, I don't know would it be better to wear your +swallow-tail or yet a frock with light stripe pants. Search me, Arch! +You got me guessing."</p> + +<p>Mr. Blair raised the question among his fellow employees without +obtaining satisfaction, and at last in his desperation actually tackled +the head of the firm, whose name sometimes appeared in the newspapers as +among those present.</p> + +<p>Thanks to this gentleman's surprised advice, Archibald made a most +proper appearance on the night appointed, and this time gloves were not +forgotten. Also, during the course of the afternoon, Joan received a +mysterious bouquet of roses bearing the legend, "From a Friend."</p> + +<p>She chuckled over this quite affectionately. "He's funny," she thought, +"but he's really a dear!"</p> + +<p>Archibald was very much surprised when she thanked him for the roses, +and deeply relieved that she did not seem to think him "fresh."</p> + +<p>"How did you guess it was me?" he wondered.</p> + +<p>"Well—I haven't so many 'friends' whom it might have been."</p> + +<p>"<i>You?</i>"—His incredulity was flattering.</p> + +<p>She smiled. "Not many who would not want their generosity known, Mr. +Blair. Usually in our world, when people do things for one they like to +get full credit for it. They even expect a return in kind!"</p> + +<p>Lightly as she spoke, her tone troubled him. Glancing at her furtively, +he realized that this was not the little girl he had first seen in +haughty tears on the train, and yearned over because she seemed too +young to know the meaning of trouble. Now she was infinitely more +approachable, but also, somehow, infinitely farther away. If he was not +mistaken she had learned very thoroughly the meaning of trouble. There +was a listless droop of the lids, a slightly weary inflection of the +bright voice, that did not "belong." He remembered her as serious and +dreamy. She had become gay and wary. It was a change he did not like.</p> + +<p>But he liked Joan. He liked her almost too well. Never did a heart more +chivalrous beat beneath a $3.99 waistcoat; and if he had not long ere +this become a notable squire of dames, it was simply for lack of the +opportunity. Most of the dames he knew seemed so amply able to take care +of themselves.</p> + +<p>The evening under these conditions became almost as glorious an occasion +as the ball had been. True, he saw little of Joan, because other men +came and went constantly in the box, and frequently took her away with +them to stroll around the ring. Despite Mrs. Darcy's seemingly oblivious +amiability, he could not talk to her with any comfort. He had no skill +to hide the stiffness with which her presence affected him, and after a +few kind-hearted attempts to put him at ease, she left him to the Major +entirely. But that suited Archibald very well. He admired the Major +tremendously, aside from the fact that he was Joan's father.</p> + +<p>"A perfect gentleman," he pronounced him inwardly, taking envious note +of his manners, his well-fitting, soft-bosomed shirt, the mellifluous +tones of his really beautiful voice.</p> + +<p>Major Darcy, always at his best before an admiring audience, produced +some of his neatest anecdotes for this appreciative guest, and they +presently entered into a learned and congenial discussion of the Horse, +expert knowledge of which was part of their mutual birthright. It was a +proud young man who later strolled out to the bar for liquid refreshment +with Richard Darcy's arm thrust carelessly through his. Archibald had +within him great possibilities for hero-worship.</p> + +<p>It may have been the liquid refreshment which finally gave him courage +to propose to Joan that she stroll with him around the ring, as she had +strolled with others. At any rate, he shortly found himself part of that +meandering show of débutantes and others, which rivaled, if it did not +eclipse, the exhibit on the tanbark. He, Archie Blair, in a high silk +topper, escorting a vision in a picture-hat with a plume, and a long +gray velvet coat, and silvery furs around her neck, the price of which +would almost have bought him an education!</p> + +<p>He felt that at any moment a bouncer might discover him, and walk up to +murmur sinisterly in his ear, "Out this way!"</p> + +<p>But none did. Now and then Joan stopped and introduced him to other +visions, who gushed and babbled, asking whether she was going to +So-and-so's luncheon, and who was taking her to such-and-such a +cotillion, and what she was going to wear to the next costume ball. He +noticed that she neither gushed nor babbled in return, but seemed +pleasantly aloof, a little <i>distrait</i>, as if she were an older woman +listening to children.</p> + +<p>"Business of being a society girl," he commented once, half to himself.</p> + +<p>She gave him a smiling glance. "Yes," she said, "it has a lingo like any +other trade."</p> + +<p>"But <i>you</i> don't speak it."</p> + +<p>"I think perhaps it's not my trade."</p> + +<p>He asked, greatly daring, "What is, then?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Joan, "yet."</p> + +<p>Just then a rather dissipated-looking boy with his hat on the back of +his head passed them, and paused.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Blair!" he said, lifting his hat to Joan.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Carmichael!" Archie greeted him.</p> + +<p>"My sister told me to tell you you'd better come to our box and +apologize. She says you were to take supper with her at some ball or +other, and never turned up."</p> + +<p>"Oh, gee!" exclaimed Archie, remorsefully, "I forgot it; clean as a +whistle!"</p> + +<p>"Better come and grovel, then," grinned the other, and passed on.</p> + +<p>Joan looked at him in amusement. "Do you mean to say you never took +Emily Carmichael out to supper after she had asked you to? What are you +going to say to her?"</p> + +<p>"That I forgot," said Archie simply. He certainly could not explain that +the cause of his forgetfulness was the <i>contretemps</i> of having requested +his hostess under a misapprehension to leave her own entertainment!</p> + +<p>Joan chuckled. "Well! I'm certainly glad I didn't ask you to have supper +with me!"</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't have forgotten that," said Archibald.</p> + +<p>She looked at him out of the corner of her eyes. It was said neither +shyly not gallantly nor boldly, simply as a statement of fact.</p> + +<p>Joan was very tired of flirtation just then. She shied away from any +hint of the personal like a burnt child in the vicinity of fire. She had +no desire for further victims of her bow and spear; but she did want +friends. It occurred to her that this frank, tactless, simple young man +might do very well in that capacity.</p> + +<p>"Take me right back to our box," she commanded, "and go and make your +peace with Miss Carmichael! Don't you know you can't afford to +antagonize such a power at court?"</p> + +<p>He obeyed meekly. With quite a proprietary interest, she watched his +awkward entry into the enemy's country, his introduction to Carmichael +<i>père</i> and Carmichael <i>mère</i>, a lady who looked on life (the Darcys +included) through a rather invidious lorgnon. This lorgnon trained +itself on Archibald at close range.</p> + +<p>"Poor Mr. Blair!" thought Joan.</p> + +<p>But a little while later she was surprised to see that her protégé and +Mrs. Carmichael had joined the ranks of the strollers and were chatting +and laughing together with quite an air of old friendship. He looked up +at her as they passed, shyly, and Joan clapped her hands softly to +indicate approval.</p> + +<p>The last ring of horses was showing when he finally returned.</p> + +<p>"Well," Joan rallied him. "I thought you'd gone over to the enemy for +good!"</p> + +<p>"Judge Carmichael and I were talking over old times when I used to sell +him papers," explained Archibald. "I reminded him of a day when he +treated me to a pair of shoes because he said my toes sticking out made +him feel chilly.... But are they your enemies?"</p> + +<p>Joan bit her lip. She did not like her self-consciousness about the +Carmichaels. "Really, I don't know," she said indifferently. "They +certainly are not my friends."</p> + +<p>"I think they'd like to be, though!" remarked the unexpected Archie. +"Miss Carmichael said you were the only one of the débutantes who looked +worth while, and she asked a lot of questions about you and your father, +and said she would have been to see you long ago, except for—" He +stopped abruptly. He had almost finished the quotation <i>verbatim</i>.</p> + +<p>Joan flushed. "I trust you were able to give her a good account of us!" +she remarked haughtily.</p> + +<p>Archie answered in all innocence. "I told her Mrs. Darcy was your +step-mother."</p> + +<p>Despite her annoyance, Joan had to laugh at that. After all it was too +absurd, this protégé of hers, this discovery out of the slums, standing +sponsor for the Darcy family with the Carmichaels!...</p> + +<p>It did not occur to her to invite him to call. She had not as yet +plumbed the depths of his social ignorance. He stood down-cast +throughout the leave-takings, the remarks of "See you to-morrow," and +"One o'clock lunch, did you say?" realizing that this wonderful evening +was over, and not daring to hope that such luck would come his way a +third time. He looked rather like a big, humble puppy that is about to +be shut out of the house at night.</p> + +<p>It was Effie May who noticed the resemblance. "Be sure you pay your two +party-calls promptly, Mr. Blair," was her parting suggestion. "And if +you happen to be at the Horse Show any other night this week, drop in at +our box, you know."</p> + +<p>"Yes 'm! yes 'm, I certainly will," he replied to both these +hints—stiffly, because it was the only way he could manage to speak to +this lady. But his ears were quite pink with pleasure.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + + +<p>On Joan's return from Longmeadow she had found her family already +beginning to prepare for what was by far the most ambitious effort +undertaken by Effie May as yet: her formal début into society. Joan, +rather alarmed, protested. She wished nothing so much at the moment as +to be allowed to slip into some inconspicuous corner and recover her +lost confidence. She was in no mood for a continuation of an empty +social career, particularly under the ægis of her father's wife. Other +plans were beginning to formulate vaguely in her head, and she wanted +leisure to perfect them.</p> + +<p>But here for the first time she came into direct contact with the +amiable, easy-going, unescapable persistence she had before suspected in +her step-mother, and which made her feel as helpless as a caged rabbit; +a much indulged and petted rabbit, to be sure, in which it was sheer +ingratitude not to love its cage. Effie May used neither argument nor +explanation. She simply went her chosen way, and the rest of the +household perforce accompanied her.</p> + +<p>Joan, herself not unaccustomed to pursuing her own path, did not submit +without a struggle. The difficulty was to bring the matter out into the +open. Effie May had a habit of taking things for granted that made +discussion gratuitous.</p> + +<p>"Father," Joan said determinedly one night at dinner, when the two +elders were discussing the details of the impending ball, "why do we +give a ball, anyway? It's not as if we were under many obligations to +people—rather the contrary. And what's the point of entertaining for me +in this wholesale way, when I do not wish to be a débutante?"</p> + +<p>"Don't <i>wish</i> to be a débutante?" cried the astonished gentleman. "Why, +my child, the pollywog might as well decide that it does not wish to be +a frog! At a certain age young women of a certain position naturally +have to be presented to society. What else is there for them to do?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, lots of things," said the girl with impatient vagueness. "They can +be teachers or librarians, or—stenographers, or journalists—something +useful, you know."</p> + +<p>"Never," said the Major with pained emphasis, "while I am alive and able +to support her, shall a daughter of mine step out of that station in +life to which it has pleased God to call her! No lady of my family has +yet, I thank God, been under the necessity of becoming anything +'useful'—Useful! Absurd!"</p> + +<p>(Joan had a momentary vision of her frail mother at sewing-machine and +housework; the three Misses Darcy struggling to make ends meet by means +of paying guests who did not always pay.)</p> + +<p>"May I ask," continued her father with a dignity that verged upon +acerbity, "the reason for this sudden desire on your part to be +'useful'? It is a desire usually confined, I think, to ladies who have +ceased to be ornamental," he added, with a gallant inclination in her +direction.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Dad, you know what I mean!" she said rather desperately. "I simply +want to be independent."</p> + +<p>"And where can you be more independent than under your father's roof?" +he demanded. "Free to come and go as you choose, free to entertain your +friends as you like, to make what purchases you will, to run up accounts +at the shops—"</p> + +<p>"And without a penny I can call my own!" blurted out Joan.</p> + +<p>"As to that," he remarked with a shrug of distaste, "you have merely to +come to your father, my child."</p> + +<p>"Exactly," said Joan bitterly.</p> + +<p>Here Effie May entered the arena, fighting as usual upon the side of her +victim. "The girl's right. She ought to have her own allowance—as you +were saying only last night, Dickie."</p> + +<p>"Was I?'" murmured the Major. "Yes, yes, so I was! An allowance of—How +much did I say, my darling?"</p> + +<p>"Two hundred dollars a month," prompted his darling. "Do you think you +could manage on that, Joan?"</p> + +<p>The girl lifted shamed eyes to her step-mother. She could not bear to +look at her father, puffing himself out with conscious pride.</p> + +<p>"Very well," she said in a low voice. "I'll be a débutante since you +wish it—I'll spend the money and wear the clothes you provide, and eat +the food you give me—but understand me! I'm only doing it because I +have no choice."</p> + +<p>She suddenly turned and ran out of the room. The Major stared after her, +blankly.</p> + +<p>"What's come over the child? She used to be so sweet-tempered and +reasonable, grateful for everything. All this nonsense about +independence! What does she mean by it, anyway?"</p> + +<p>"She simply means she wants a man of her own, like every blessed +mother's daughter of us," explained Effie May comfortably, "and that's +what I'm trying to help her to, and it makes her sort of ashamed because +she's got to be helped. That's all!... Say, old pet—" she seated +herself upon his knee, as was her cosy custom when opportunity +offered—"who's this chap Nikolai, anyway, that's always writing to her? +He gives her some pretty good presents. That piece of aquamarine he sent +her when she graduated—it's worth a lot of money. Is he rich?"</p> + +<p>"He's a very successful writer, I believe."</p> + +<p>"Hmm! Old? <i>Too</i> old, I mean?"</p> + +<p>"For what?"</p> + +<p>"Why, for Joan, old duckie."</p> + +<p>"Joan?" repeated the Major vaguely. He had for the moment lost interest +in his daughter's affairs. The ex-widow Calloway made rather a luscious +armful. He roused himself to the required attention, however. "For Joan? +Why, good gad! the man's old enough to be her father! He was a friend of +Mary's."</p> + +<p>"Before she married you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, afterwards. She picked him up somewhere when Joan was a baby."</p> + +<p>"<i>Oho!</i>" murmured Effie May with an indescribable expression. "I didn't +know Mary was the sort to have friends after she was married!" (It is +just possible that the bride was rather fed up on the virtues of her +predecessor.) But a sudden stiffening of the arms that enfolded her +warned her of rocks ahead, and she finished smoothly, "I thought she was +too interested in you to know that any one else existed."</p> + +<p>"By no means," smiled Richard Darcy, mollified. "On the contrary, she +took an interest in many people whom I found tiresome in the extreme. +Her lame ducks, I called them. Mr. Nikolai was one of those."</p> + +<p>"Why lame?"</p> + +<p>"Well, at the time we first knew him it seems the girl he was engaged to +had just thrown him over because she found out that he was a Jew."</p> + +<p>Effie May gave a little squeal of horror, "A Jew! Well, I don't blame +her for shying at the altar! Of all the men I've known in my day, I +never <i>did</i> go with any Jew!"</p> + +<p>"I confess I have something of the same prejudice myself," admitted the +Major, "Jews and the canile.... But Mary was different, somehow. Not +democratic exactly—she was one of the most fastidious women I have ever +known. But people were simply people to her, particularly if they were +in trouble. She and Nikolai became great friends. And of course since +then he had grown to be quite a distinguished person, Jew or no Jew."</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't have thought you'd have wanted him round the house, +though!" mused Effie May, as though Mr. Nikolai's Judaism might have +been contagious.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, he was so devoted to the child, and so grateful, and in fact +made himself useful in so many ways," explained Richard Darcy with a +slight blush, "that I had not the heart to object to his presence. +Besides, as he is not robust, and has no progeny of his own, I thought +that in time perhaps Joan—You see?"</p> + +<p>"I see! Of course Jew money is as good as any money, especially when the +Jew's dead." She nodded thoughtfully. "But it puts him out of the +question as a husband for Joan."</p> + +<p>"My darling, he has never been <i>in</i> the question as a husband for Joan! +What an idea! Was it so happy in its own little nest that it wants to +find nesties for all the other little birdies!" cooed the bridegroom, +impatiently drawing her down into his arms again.</p> + +<p>"Um-m-m!" responded the bride, yielding without undue reluctance.</p> + +<p>And so Joan found them as she came remorsefully downstairs some time +later, two mature love-birds perched upon a single twig, as it were, +oblivious of time and the grins of passing servants; and she turned away +hastily to shut out the horrid sight.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + + +<p>One thing almost reconciled her to the distasteful idea of entering +further into the social world under the wing of her step-mother, and +that was the gratification, the artless delight, taken by her father's +cousins in the idea of assisting at a Galt House Ball, almost in the +capacity of hostesses. There was something piteous to the girl, though +humiliating, about the three little spinsters' unflagging interest in +the amusements of people who had forgotten, if they ever knew of, the +Misses Darcys' existence. Despite their long retirement from what they +called "the polite world," these ladies were inveterate students of the +social column, and constituted in themselves a complete local edition of +"Who's Who."</p> + +<p>Whenever Joan went to see them—which was rather often nowadays, for her +late experience had had the not unusual effect of softening her +comprehension, while it hardened her surfaces—they greeted her with +eager gossip, such as: "I see the little Jones girl is to be married at +last!" or, "The paper doesn't mention your name at the Smiths' cotillion +last night.... Surely you were there?"</p> + +<p>In their eyes she was evidently a most romantic figure, the embodiment +of gaiety and youth and of all they had hoped but somehow failed to be. +They exclaimed with quite personal delight over her frocks, her pretty +underthings, her dainty shoes, the silver-fox furs Stefan Nikolai had +sent her from Siberia.</p> + +<p>"You're going to be one of the belles of the winter!" prophesied Miss +Virginia raptly. "I can tell from the way the paper speaks of you +already! 'Miss Darcy, the fascinating daughter of Major and Mrs. Richard +Throckmorton Darcy, lately returned from the East'—etc. Clothes do help +so much," she added wistfully. "I sometimes think that if dear papa had +been able to manage better dresses for us—" She left her remark +unfinished, a conversational characteristic of all the Darcy ladies.</p> + +<p>"You must remember that dear papa had three of us to provide for, +whereas Cousin Richard has only one," reminded Miss Iphigenia loyally. +"Besides, you were too pretty to need anything but the simplest white +muslins, Virgie. Fine dresses would not have been half as becoming."</p> + +<p>"What nonsense, Genie!" blushed her sister. "I'm sure you didn't need +clothes any more than I did, with all your beautiful hair."</p> + +<p>Joan's evil imagination pictured her Cousin Iphigenia frequenting the +polite world clad, like the Lady Godiva, chiefly in hair, and she +chuckled; but at the same time she kissed both ladies impulsively.</p> + +<p>This was one of the things that brought her to the dingy house so +frequently; the atmosphere of affectionate appreciation that warmed it. +In her father's family—and it was one of the Darcys' undoubted +charms—all geese were swans, and they put not only their own but each +other's best foot foremost with a touching unanimity. The three sisters +regarded each other as paragons, exceeded in degree only by their first +cousin Richard, who, in addition to being a Darcy, was likewise a man, +and by their first-cousin-once-removed Joan, who in addition to being a +Darcy was young. As to their cousin Richard's new wife—the name she had +assumed in marriage banished before birth any qualms they might have +felt as to her inborn qualifications for the polite world. A Darcy could +naturally do no wrong.</p> + +<p>One of the things Joan liked best in Effie May was her consistent +kindness to these rather tiresome and unimportant spinsters. "Buying +them!" she had thought at first. But after all why should any one +trouble to buy them? Hers was not entirely a material kindness, either. +She consulted them faithfully in social matters, even in household +matters (though the Misses Darcy were not notable housekeepers). She and +the Major and the limousine accompanied them occasionally to church, the +only form of social dissipation in which they still indulged. Altogether +she exhibited in dealing with them a tact which in anybody else Joan +would have attributed to good breeding.</p> + +<p>One morning, when the girl stopped in to make her cousins a visit, the +opening door revealed an unusual amount of chatter coming down from the +floor above; soft, pretty chatter (like her father, the Darcy ladies had +charming voices), mingled with the steady hum of a sewing-machine.</p> + +<p>"What's up, Susy?" she asked the languid colored slattern who let her +in.</p> + +<p>"De ladies is gittin' ready fo' de ball, I'specks, Miss Joan, fittin' on +dey new dresses."</p> + +<p>"New dresses? A ball?" repeated the surprised Joan, who did not connect +these activities with her own début, scheduled to take place a month or +so later. "I must investigate!" and ignoring Susy's best efforts to toll +her into the parlor, she pursued the chatter to its source.</p> + +<p>She avoided that parlor whenever possible, having earlier exhausted its +charms. It was a rather dismal chamber, with shutters always closed +against a too-revealing sunlight. Innumerable small tables and a double +mantel-shelf were crowded with articles of <i>vertu</i> in the shape of +hand-painted vases, and ginger-jars, and marble hands. On the walls, +concealing as much as possible of the original decoration, hung +specimens of all the artistic aspirations of the Darcy family and +friends; "Yards of Pansies," still-life studies of a fan in interesting +juxtaposition to a coal-scuttle, and the like. Concealment seemed to be +the motif of the decoration-scheme. The fireplace was concealed by +moribund cat-tails, the former usefulness of a spinning-wheel was +concealed by gilt paint, the function of the lamp was concealed, if not +permanently impaired, by a ruffled blue silk petticoat reminiscent for +the best of reasons of a certain blue silk party-dress that had once +done yeoman's service in the family.</p> + +<p>The elegance of their parlor enabled Joan's cousins to ask several +dollars more a month for their rooms than did any other house in the +square; but Joan, who, had inherited from the maternal side a strain of +practicality, positively ached in her joints at the thought of the hours +it must take to thoroughly sweep and dust it—if indeed it ever were +thoroughly swept and dusted.</p> + +<p>She poked her head around a door that stood ajar on the third floor: +"May I come in?"</p> + +<p>The three turned startled faces to greet her, two in dressing-sacks +whose fronts bristled with pins, the third in a costume which seemed +vaguely familiar, a dress which glittered with jet sequins and was cut +so low that it was perhaps fortunate Miss Euphemia had neglected to +remove her gray flannel underwear.</p> + +<p>"Why, Joan!" they chorused, dismay mingling with their welcome. (Even in +conversation they were a most united family, speaking usually all three +at once.) "However did you find your way up here? That stupid Susy +should have shown you into the drawing-room!—or at least have announced +you, so that you would not have caught us like this."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense! Susy tried to shoo me into the parlor, but I wouldn't be +shooed; and as for 'announcing' me—she did howl up the stairs. But you +were too engrossed to hear." The naïve respect with which they treated +their prosperous young cousin always mortified Joan. She had her own +conception of the family dignity. "You'd suppose I'd never seen a +dressing-sack or a sewing-machine in my life, whereas I was raised on +'em.—My word, Cousin Euphie, how grand you are!"</p> + +<p>"Am I, dear? The dress is grand, I know," said Miss Euphemia doubtfully, +"but I'm not sure it's quite in my style. The others thought I'd better +have it because I'm plumpest, in the—in the chest, you know. But +really, the waist!—There simply isn't any, Joan! What would you +suggest?"</p> + +<p>"A yoke," said the girl gravely.</p> + +<p>"Just what I said!" twittered Miss Iphigenia. "Yokes <i>are</i> being worn, +or I'm certain Joan wouldn't have suggested it. A guimpe of black net +perhaps—tucked, would you say, Joan dear!—and long wrinkled sleeves of +the same. Which would do away with the necessity for long gloves, +girls!"</p> + +<p>This happy thought was greeted with acclaim. "How clever of you, Genie! +We can <i>all</i> have guimpes and long sleeves? You see, three pairs of long +white gloves—" they explained to Joan.</p> + +<p>"Of course!" she said hastily, making a mental note to supply her +cousins with long white gloves if she had to ask her step-mother for the +money.</p> + +<p>They showed her the other dresses eagerly; an amber-colored satin—"With +slippers to match, my dear!"—and one of old-rose brocade which Miss +Virginia almost kissed in her affection for it.</p> + +<p>"I sometimes think if I could have had a dress like this earlier—" she +murmured. "Though of course my real color, like yours, Joan, was blue. A +blue sash, and a pink rose in the hair. As General Fitzhugh Lee once +said to me at a Galt House ball—"</p> + +<p>"No, wasn't it at the Governor's Inauguration, sister?" interposed Miss +Euphemia.</p> + +<p>In the gentle altercation which ensued, Joan never heard just what the +gallant general had said to her cousin Virginia; but she suspected it of +having some connection with blue eyes.</p> + +<p>"You're a lucky girl to be presented at a Galt House ball!" they +exclaimed presently, returning to the subject in hand. "And Cousin Effie +May has really been <i>too</i> sweet about it. Insists, simply insists that +we shall all three of us stand up with her in the receiving line! Says +she'd be terribly shy without us." (Joan smiled faintly at the picture +of Effie May being shy.) "We said to her, 'No, my dear, one of us is +<i>quite</i> enough. We'll draw straws for it, as we always used to.' Dear +papa never let all three of us go to the same party. As he said, 'It's +too much of a good thing!' (Slang, you know.) But she assured us that +she had three evening dresses she couldn't get into,"—it was Miss +Euphemia speaking at the moment, quite unaware of any naïvété in the +sequence of her remarks,—"and that it would be a real kindness on our +part to take them off her hands. You know, dear, Cousin Effie May really +is getting a little stout. And she says it's such a problem to know what +to do with outgrown party dresses."</p> + +<p>"It certainly is!" agreed Miss Iphigenia, as if it were one that weighed +upon her heavily. "You simply can't give things of that sort to the +poor."</p> + +<p>"Why not?" murmured Joan, "if the poor would enjoy them?"</p> + +<p>They all rounded on her. "Why, but dear child, it wouldn't be suitable! +It would give the poor ideas beyond their station. Fancy presenting a +spangled net evening-gown to—Susy, say! It would never do!"</p> + +<p>"I suppose not, because she would certainly burst with joy. But think," +mused Joan, "what an enviable death!"</p> + +<p>The Darcy ladies looked at her uncertainly. They were never quite sure +whether their young cousin was jesting or not. They preferred people to +laugh when they joked. It made things clearer.</p> + +<p>"Never mind," the girl added hastily. "Susie's not going to get these +magnificent costumes, anyway!—and I am so glad you are coming to my +ball, dears. We'll be a whole family of débutantes!"</p> + +<p>Afterwards she realized soberly how near her pride had come to depriving +these innocent ladies of a real pleasure. Pride, she reflected, may be +very close kin to selfishness. She postponed her own plans a while +longer.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + + +<p>These were at their best vague plans. Only one thing was definite about +them. They were to include no more make-believe. Whatever came +hereafter, Joan intended to be herself. The world must accept her on her +own terms; in the phrase of her childhood "like her or lump her!"</p> + +<p>The difficulty was to decide just what that self might be. Hitherto it +had altered obligingly to suit different situations; blowing now hot, +now cold, according to the wind of circumstance. But surely underneath +there was a definite entity, which did not chop and change and adapt +itself, but remained Joan?</p> + +<p>At school she had shown no particular aptitude that would help her +now—or rather had shown an aptitude in so many directions as to give +rise to a widespread impression that "Joan Darcy would get somewhere +some day," but which had caused more than one of her teachers to shake +her head and murmur something about Jack of all trades being master of +none. She herself had found this facility convenient, not in the pursuit +of study but in the avoidance of it. She had managed to slip through the +brief period allotted by Richard Darcy for the necessities of a young +gentlewoman's education, with the minimum of work combined with the +maximum of pleasure. It seemed to her then, and afterwards, the wisest +possible use to make of a superior brain. Possibly the mental diet +offered for her consideration was not altogether suited to Joan's +peculiar requirements.</p> + +<p>Certainly she came away from school with little more knowledge than she +had taken into it, even with regard to herself. Vague yearnings she was +aware of, vague inhibitions and promptings; together with tastes and +distastes that were not vague at all. She put the latter down on a bit +of paper, in an effort to come to a clearer understanding of the girl +who was Joan Darcy.</p> + +<p>She liked:</p> + +<p>1. Books. On any subject whatever, provided they did not try to teach +anything and came up to her rather exacting standards of style.</p> + +<p>2. Dancing—if people kept in step with the music and did not hold her +too close.</p> + +<p>3. Out-of-doors, especially when the wind was blowing.</p> + +<p>4. Music, if there was no one around to discuss it or analyse it.</p> + +<p>5. Children, without their families.</p> + +<p>6. Almost any sort of a dog, particularly if it did not seem to belong +to anybody. Strays regarded her as their own.</p> + +<p>She disliked (and here there were no qualifications. It was never hard +for Joan to say what she disliked!):</p> + +<p>1. Debt.</p> + +<p>2. Effusiveness.</p> + +<p>3. Humility.</p> + +<p>4. Vulgarity—under which heading she included everything her +step-mother did, or said, or thought, or wore, or was. Yet she did not +quite dislike her step-mother.</p> + +<p>This exhaustive survey left her with the impression of a hypercritical, +overconfident, extremely unpleasant young ego, which intended to get as +much out of life as possible with as little given in return, and which +so far had got about what it deserved. She was glad that no one of her +acquaintance was clever enough to see her quite as clearly as she saw +herself.</p> + +<p>Except, of course, Mr. Nikolai: and he did not count.</p> + +<p>There was something odd about Stefan Nikolai's attitude toward his +fellow-men. He seemed to regard humanity as if it were a vast picture +puzzle which it was his privilege to take apart and put together again +for his amusement. He asked nothing of any piece of the puzzle except +that it fit eventually into the spot where it belonged. Joan had a +comfortable feeling that he would presently find her spot for her in +case she failed to find it for herself. But she preferred to find it for +herself, if possible.</p> + +<p>His letter in response to the one in which she informed him of her +impending engagement to Eduard Desmond had confirmed her faith in his +uncanny insight. She did not realize how vividly her untrammeled +descriptions made people and conditions about her known to a student of +human kind. If she always saw things more clearly herself after she had +set them down in black and white, the clarity doubtless extended to +other vision.</p> + +<p>He wrote from Russia, where he had been living for a while among the +mouzhiks in order to understand how mouzhiks live. His curiosity about +such things was insatiable.</p> + +<p>"I also have a wish to see how Tzars live, since it is an order that is +passing," he added casually. "But I fear for one of my race that will be +difficult. Mouzhiks have less reason to fear us Jews than have Tsars."</p> + +<p>Then he went off at one of his usual tangents, and described to Joan +briefly the theory of vaccination. "It is a question of phagocytes, you +understand. Metchnikoff's idea is that when a disease manifests itself a +certain number of phagocytes detach themselves from the blood to fight +it. The stronger the virus injected of that disease, the greater the +number of phagocytes formed; and it is the presence of these detached +phagocytes after the virus has run its course that render the patient +immune from further attack."</p> + +<p>("What," wondered bewildered Joan, "is the man talking about? It sounds +like a medical almanac!")</p> + +<p>But as there was usually some method in Mr. Nikolai's tangents, she read +on. At the end of the last page he enlightened her, and disposed of the +affair with Eduard Desmond in two sentences.</p> + +<p>"By this time you will be recuperating from your first love-attack. +Severe, doubtless, but so much the better. More phagocytes!"</p> + +<p>It was his only reference to her revelations with regard to Eduard +Desmond. Evidently to the scientific mind love in its various +manifestations was merely a form of mal-ease to which humanity is +subject.</p> + +<p>Joan sincerely hoped that enough of the phagocytes had been released by +the innoculation to render her immune from further attack forever.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + + +<p>Social life, in a small American city that prides itself upon traditions +of social life, may be as absorbing, if not as profitable, as that in +any of the world's great capitals—perhaps more absorbing. For while it +is possible in Paris, Rome, London, New York, to disappear at will out +of the current and no questions asked, such a procedure would be as +impracticable in one of the self-sufficient societies of our South or +East as for a diving duck to remain ad libitum in the bottom of the +duck-pond. He may remain, to be sure, even until he drowns; but his +corpse need not expect a welcome when it returns to the surface, nor +will there be any attempts to resuscitate him. It behooves a +socially-inclined duck to hug the company of his fellows.</p> + +<p>Joan was caught up presently into a whirl of little events which +effectually precluded introspection and even thought. Dance followed +dance; there were teas, luncheons, dinners—above all Bridge, which was +just beginning to oust euchre from a society that must have its +gambling, even if the stakes be merely cut-glass fern dishes. The time +was not yet, in the South at least, when gentlewomen appeared at card +parties purse in hand; but certain hostesses, notably our Effie May, +soon learned to offer prizes that made attention to the game worth +while. Mrs. Darcy's Bridges were invariably successful.</p> + +<p>There began to appear, even among the freshest of the débutantes, an +expression described by Joan to her friend Nikolai as the Bridge +Face—an eager, grim look of do-or-die, which Joan did not find +becoming. (Perhaps this was because she herself never learned to play +the game, except with her hands.)</p> + +<p>A wave of interest in things equestrian followed the Horse Show for a +time, too, and Joan was one of several who rode out two or three days a +week with a riding-master on hired horses, feeling very picturesque and +Kentuckian. She was determined never to be caught napping again as she +had been at Longmeadow.</p> + +<p>Effie May also signified her intention of joining the equestriennes, and +actually appeared on two occasions in a habit which fitted her as its +cover fits a pincushion. But her misery was so apparent, though silent, +that Joan presently advised her to give it up.</p> + +<p>"I guess I never was intended for a horseback rider," she admitted with +a sigh. "No, I'm not exactly scared, dearie—who'd be afraid of old +trained sheep like them? You ought to have seen the trotters Calloway +used to drive! Nothing ever come too fast for Calloway. But somehow it's +different when you're on top of 'em, with nothing to hold on by. And +then those bones in front. It was something fierce!"</p> + +<p>She exhibited to the puzzled Joan certain injuries to her person which +made her efforts at equestrianism seem nothing short of heroic.</p> + +<p>"But why not go without bones in front, as I do?"</p> + +<p>Effie May grinned. "Ever see me without a corset, hon? And you never +will! No woman of my weight should ever be seen in public in her natural +figger, not even in her coffin. Say, Joan, promise me you won't let the +undertaker lay me out without a corset on!"</p> + +<p>Joan promised—of which promise more anon.</p> + +<p>She herself shortly became the riding-master's best pupil, a fact in +which her father took great pride.</p> + +<p>"A matter of inheritance, doubtless," he said modestly. "As you know, +Dollykins, I am a believer in the power of inheritance."</p> + +<p>And though he declined himself to join in the exercise (possibly not +wishing to put too great a strain upon the power of inheritance), his +Christmas present to his daughter was a beautiful little gaited +saddle-mare, especially selected, trained, and—such was his +intimation—bred for her use by a horse-raising cousin in the heart of +the Bluegrass.</p> + +<p>It was a docile, friendly creature, christened by its donor "Pegasus," +in order not to lay too much emphasis on its sex (the Major was rather +nice in such matters). And it soon learned to nuzzle Joan for sugar and +follow her about the yard like a big dog, looking quite injured and +surprised that she did not take it into the house with her. In her +delight and gratitude, Joan almost forgot to wonder whether the +horse-raising cousin had been paid for Pegasus, and by whom.</p> + +<p>The possession of a horse automatically increased her acquaintance with +human nature, introducing her to an element of Louisville society +hitherto unknown to her except at a distance—the negro. Mrs. Darcy +employed, with the exception of a chauffeur and a yard-boy, what she +designated as "white help." She, like Ellen Neal, had an inherent +distrust of a black skin. But wherever there is a good horse may also be +found, drawn by an irresistible affinity, all the male negroes of the +vicinity.</p> + +<p>Joan, advised and assisted by the chauffeur, the yard-boy, and +innumerable colored acquaintances from the alley, soon learned more +about horses and horsemanship than could have been taught her in all the +riding-schools in the world. Pegasus was brought up literally by hand. +The yard-boy proved himself particularly adept, though how he came by so +much knowledge of horse-flesh in his eighteen ragged years of cutting +grass and whitening front steps and washing windows, was a puzzle to +Joan. She asked him once.</p> + +<p>"Huccom I knows how to do wif <i>hawses</i>?" he repeated, scratching his +head. "Laws, Miss Joan, <i>I</i> dunno! Huccum I knows how to chaw terbacca, +or to w'istle thoo my teef? Reck'n I was jes' natchelly bo'n dat-away."</p> + +<p>She wondered what, with the gradual disappearance of the horse, would +become of his friend the negro. Perhaps both, like the Indian, were +doomed soon to become a legend in the land....</p> + +<p>Richard Darcy formed quite a habit of dropping in at the stable himself +to give Joan the benefit of his advice and inexperience; and his +attitude toward their colored visitors was a source of never-failing +interest to her. He treated them with an off-hand casualness quite +impossible to his daughter, to whom they were a race apart, to be pitied +and dealt with gently. The Major dealt with them anything but gently. He +bullied them, swore at them, ordered them around as if they were still +goods and chattels, and apparently they loved him for it. One and all +they sprang to his least suggestion, from the humblest alley-rat of the +neighborhood to the haughtiest chauffeur—and there is nothing haughtier +in the world than a colored man in livery. At the same time, they felt +quite free to confide in him the most intimate details of their private +lives; and they asked without reserve for anything of his that took +their fancy. His cigars, his small change, the very clothes on his back, +were not sacred from their requisition.</p> + +<p>"Please, Major, gimme two-bits?" one of them would suggest tentatively.</p> + +<p>"What do you want two-bits for, you infernal beggar?"</p> + +<p>"To buy me a drink with, please, suh. My th'oat's dusty."</p> + +<p>"A damn good reason for a damn impudent request," Richard Darcy would +grumble, his hand going into his pocket.</p> + +<p>Once Joan heard a dressy youth, who was at the moment rubbing a special +polish onto Pegasus, remark: "Dat's a mighty fine tie you-all's wearin' +dis mawnin', suh. Gimme hit?"</p> + +<p>"Well, of all the infernal cheek!" cried the Major.</p> + +<p>"Gimme hit when hit's done worn out, den?"</p> + +<p>"D'you think I've nothing better to do than watch my clothes for signs +of wear so that I may present them to <i>you</i>, you ugly rascal? I will +not!"</p> + +<p>But some days later Joan recognized on the negro's neck the tie in +question, which appeared to have worn out with unprecedented rapidity.</p> + +<p>From signs like this Joan came to the conclusion that there existed +between Richard Darcy and the negroes something of the same affinity as +between the negro and the horse. They were all part together of a day +that has passed. It was another of the records of the old South for +which she was constantly looking; and a far finer, truer relation it +seemed to her than the mistrust and dislike which independence has +latterly fostered between the races. She recalled that her father had +never in his life spoken of his family's servants as "our slaves," but +always as "our people." To him all negroes were still "our people"; a +responsibility and a charge, to be kept in order, bullied perhaps, but +protected, too, because of their great need of protection. And to all +negroes, if to no one else in the world, Richard Darcy was a great man, +one of the masters.</p> + +<p>She tried to express something of this idea once to Archie Blair, who +was always so eager to follow her mental excursions that she sometimes +made the mistake of believing he did follow them. But for once he +disagreed with his oracle utterly.</p> + +<p>"Niggers are the curse of the South," he announced. "Always have been +and always will be."</p> + +<p>She attempted to make him explain this peremptory point of view, but +Archie was not very good at explaining. He was one of the people who +know what they know without knowing why they know it (blood-brothers to +those art-critics who are always aware of what they like when they see +it). Such do not shine in debate. He could only shake his head and +repeat his conviction that niggers were the curse of the South.</p> + +<p>She changed the subject rather impatiently. She would have liked to +retort that well-bred people at least do not call them "niggers." But +somehow Archibald was not fair game.</p> + +<p>She was seeing rather more than she had expected of her protégé. In +Louisville there is a certain catholicity in the matter of big +entertainments. That portion of the population which possesses the +inborn or acquired right to call itself "Society" is not large enough to +supply a sufficient number of dancing-men to sustain the true belle's +boast that she never dances more than once around a ballroom with the +same partner. Indeed, in the matter of belles themselves there is a +certain catholicity. Every pretty girl who grows up in the old town with +any pretentious to grammar and respectability and polite behavior has +one chance in her lifetime to foot it with the best. She may, if she so +wishes, enroll herself among the season's débutantes.</p> + +<p>If her family can afford a certain amount of entertaining to support +this pretention, well and good. If not, she must manage as best she can +with the friendly aid of the society column—no small power in the land. +Let the would-be débutante but supply herself with presentable dancing +frocks and slippers, and Louisville will do the rest.—For one season. +During that brief time, however, she must make good her footing by means +of matrimony or otherwise, or back to the chimney-corner for her, like +Cinderella when the cock crew. The town is full of disappointed little +Cinderellas, comforting themselves with good works or a humble +domesticity, dreaming who knows what dreams of the Might-Have-Been.</p> + +<p>They do not all return to the chimney-corner, however. Sometimes they +stay. Sometimes they fare forth joyously into a larger world, and their +names lend luster to greater events than are chronicled in our society +column. One, at least, trails gracefully through ducal halls, and the +strawberry leaves are almost as becoming to her pretty hair as the rose +she wore to her first Galt House ball.—Perhaps Louisville, with a +reputation to sustain, is wise to give her unknown Cinderellas the +benefit of the doubt.</p> + +<p>The male Cinderellas, if they are not welcomed with quite the same +interest, are at least not as soon thrust back into the limbo of things +forgotten. Once their names appear in the list of presentable dancers, +they may arrive year after year at the larger balls, eat, drink and make +merry, select such partners as please them, and retire into their lairs +again until the next entertainment, with no further obligation on their +part than perhaps a perfunctory handshaking with their host and hostess. +Not even that, if modesty forbids. Nor need anything bar the gates to +them except age, conspicuous behavior, or the lack of a long-tailed +coat.</p> + +<p>Archibald Blair presently got used to the surprise of receiving +frequently in his mail engraved invitations from people who did not know +him, and began to look upon them as a special dispensation on the part +of Providence to favor his pursuit of Miss Joan Darcy.—If anything so +entirely self-effacing could be called a pursuit! His wish was merely to +see her whenever possible, to listen to her whenever possible, and if +absolutely necessary to talk to her till somebody more worthy came to +take his place. And having made, a week apart, his two party-calls as +suggested by her inexplicable but obliging step-mother, he would have +been at a loss as to how to manage further encounters if it had not been +for the assistance of these providential invitations.</p> + +<p>Archie also, being quick to take a hint, made prompt party-calls on the +providers of the invitations, a fact which set him apart among dancing +men; so that presently he began to see Joan not only at large balls but +at smaller buffet suppers and the like, even at theater parties, when a +hostess's need was desperate. All of which surprised Joan far more than +it surprised him. He accepted the whole thing as a miracle, part of the +incredible good luck which had begun to happen to him when he landed his +first big order in Philadelphia, and got on to the train for home to +find the One and Only sitting in the chair behind him.</p> + +<p>"Whoops, my dear! I've got 'em locoed," said grateful Archie to himself; +referring presumably to the Fates.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + + +<p>His luck did not confine itself to social matters. One day the president +of the firm, a Mr. Moore, greatly admired in the office because of his +hauteur with employees, sent for Archie for no apparent reason except to +chat about life in general and business in particular. Now business was +a thing which Archibald enjoyed as some men enjoy golf. Getting about +among all sorts of people, making them like you whether they wanted to +or not, persuading them that the varnish or glue or wax or what-not you +happened to be selling was just a little better than any other on the +market (which Archie certainly believed it was), overcoming the natural +reluctance of human nature to try anything with which it is not +familiar, and finally retiring with a fat little order in his +vest-pocket—all this was as exciting to young Blair as the hazard of +the highway may have been to earlier Knights of the Road. With the +additional advantage of being honest. Archie always preferred, when it +was possible, to be honest. So that he had a good deal to say to Mr. +Moore.</p> + +<p>He liked the president, too—a stiffish old boy whom lately he had met +around quite often at the Horse Show and such places and who seemed to +eye his employee on such occasions with an oddly proprietary interest. +If Archie had ever chanced to read of Benjamin Franklin's discovery that +the way to propitiate the enemy is to ask a favor of him, he might have +understood this personal interest on Mr. Moore's part. But he had quite +forgotten that he had once committed the solecism of asking that +gentleman what to wear to the Horse Show.</p> + +<p>Mr. Moore presently mentioned in the course of conversation that Smith, +the sales manager of the varnish department, was about to leave the +firm.</p> + +<p>"Gee! What for?" said Archie sympathetically. "Is he sick?" It did not +occur to him that any one who had attained so exalted a position would +willingly leave it except for mortal reasons.</p> + +<p>"He goes over to the Lidden people, who've offered him more money."</p> + +<p>"Why, but—He's been with us since he was a boy!"</p> + +<p>This comment pleased Mr. Moore. "Loyalty's as rare in business as +elsewhere, Blair. I'm not sorry to let him go. He hasn't done what I +hoped he would do to put that new polish of ours on the market. Rather +fallen down there."</p> + +<p>"It's a peach, too! One drop and your table-top shines like a reflector +in the sun," murmured Archie perfunctorily, from sheer force of habit. A +premonition had struck him of what was coming next.</p> + +<p>It came. "How would you like to take charge of that end yourself?"</p> + +<p>For a moment Archie was speechless. He, as sales manager!—He, one of +the youngest men in the firm, put over the head of the good old boys who +had taught him the business!—Very red as to the ears, he stammered +something about lack of experience.</p> + +<p>"You've had a good deal of experience, Blair," said Mr. Moore. "You were +a salesman, and a successful one, at the age of—eight, wasn't it? Or +six? And then you've a sort of a knack of getting on with people. That's +as useful in handling men as in handling sales. In fact, Smith says +you're one of the best we've got. Shouldn't be surprised if he tried to +take you over to Lidden's with him."</p> + +<p>"He needn't!" cried Archie hotly.</p> + +<p>"Then you'll take the job?"</p> + +<p>Archie's grin began to grow until it communicated itself to the +president, to the interested stenographer, to the very clock on the wall +behind him.</p> + +<p>"Like a mice!" he murmured cryptically at last; but Mr. Moore appeared +to understand him....</p> + +<p>It was perhaps fortunate that Ellen Neal was at home when he came +bounding up the stairs that evening, or he might have burst with his +tidings. As it was she thought he had been drinking, and began to +prepare surreptitiously a good strong cup of black coffee. (She had had +some experience with antidotes, had Ellen.)</p> + +<p>"A salary <i>and</i> commissions—do you get me, wench?" he repeated for the +third time. "I'm to run the whole shebang, advertisements and all, and +put what boys I like on the road with it, while I sit back in me office +like a young Pierpont Morgan directing operations! La-la-laihoo!" he +yodled, suddenly seizing Ellen about the waist and one-stepping her +across the room, to the imminent peril of the chandelier below.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Archibald, behave! Me, a respectable spinster woman—" she panted.</p> + +<p>"True! ''tis pity 'tis, 'tis true!' Away with frivolity now! I must +remember the dignity of me office!" he declaimed, releasing her and +striking the attitude of Napoleon crossing the Alps.</p> + +<p>"It means better wages, don't it?"</p> + +<p>"Wages, woman? A salary <i>and</i> commissions! Ha!"</p> + +<p>"And you'll be getting too rich and grand for the attic now, I suppose." +She sighed. "You'll be setting up at some swell boarding-house, maybe, +or perhaps at that club where all the young society fellows live?" +(Since the Darcy début into society, Ellen was almost as conversant with +its inner life as were the Misses Darcy.)</p> + +<p>Archie's eye glinted. "The club!—why not? I hadn't thought of that." +But then he grinned, "I can see 'em hailing me—'Yere's yer paper, +sir!—yere's yer five o'clock edition! All about de mysterious moider on +de Island!'—No, I guess it won't do. The little old Y. M. C. A.'s club +enough for me. And as for leaving my attic, Mrs. Neal—" he shook his +head. "Why, it's home to me. I reckon I'll be here till the roof falls +in—which it's likely to do at any moment in a favorable breeze."</p> + +<p>"Pooh! You'll be getting married before long, and you won't marry the +sort of wife who'll want to live in a garret, neither!"</p> + +<p>"Why not?</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"A book of verses underneath the roof,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A cup of coffee and an egg in troof,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Mrs. Neal to cook it up for us—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ah, attic life were Paradise enoof!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>he warbled; and promptly encored himself amid peals of pleasure. It was +his first attempt at composition, and he liked it. (One of the young +ladies at the Library had recently introduced him, as may be suspected, +to the Rubaiyat. Eduard Desmond was not the only young man who found in +the Persian a kindred spirit.)</p> + +<p>"Well, of all the crazy galoots!" muttered Ellen, deciding that coffee +would do no good here. "You'll have to go now, Mr. Archie; I'm expecting +company. Land sakes, six o'clock! and me without my biscuits in the +pan."</p> + +<p>He observed that the table was set for two, quite magnificently, with a +celery glass containing five red carnations in its center.</p> + +<p>"Floral decorations! A genuine entertainment—and I not asked! Who, who +is the lucky fellow?"</p> + +<p>"Go on with your impidence. 'Tain't a fellow. It's—Never you mind who +it is! And you needn't think you're going to be discovered here by +accident-like, either!"—She was pushing him toward the door as she +spoke.</p> + +<p>Light dawned upon Archie. "Mrs. Neal! Not <i>her</i>?" He knew that the One +and Only sometimes dropped in to take tea with her old servant, a +goddess descending to mortals; but he had never been lucky enough to +catch her in the act.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is," replied Ellen, who needed no niceties of grammar to +realize the identity of Archibald's "her." "So now will you hurry?"</p> + +<p>He hurried; but once in the hall he paused in the grip of a daring idea. +Success had rather gone to his head.</p> + +<p>"Say! <i>Who's going to see her home?</i>"</p> + +<p>Ellen tossed her head. "Me, of course. You don't suppose I was going to +let the child go off through them dark streets all by herself?"</p> + +<p>"They <i>are</i> dark streets," he said earnestly. "Very dark streets! +Murders happen in them, frequently. Pickpockets; rats!—Really, Mrs. +Neal, two women alone would hardly be safe in them."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I'd better get me a policeman, then!" She shook her head +grimly, torn between affection for her new charge and devotion to her +old. "Look here, Mr. Archie, there's no use hangin' around like you been +doing lately. Oh, I know! You can't fool me. I was born with eyes all +over me, I was, like that critter in the antiquarium at the Fair—You're +a real nice young fellow, but a girl like Joan Darcy wouldn't so much as +look at you. She's proud, proud as the queen's cat. And her pa's prouder +still. They'd just as lief walk over you to their kerridge (which it's +an automobile) as if you was Sir Thingumbob's coat in the history book."</p> + +<p>"Fortunate coat," murmured Archie, grasping the allusion. "But who's +asking her to look at me, Mrs. Neal? I'd rather she wouldn't, really! +I'd much rather look at her. When you come right down to it, I'm sort of +proud myself!—But if I just happened to be at the front door when you +start out," he wheedled, "you wouldn't really object to my simply—well, +to my merely—"</p> + +<p>"Making a fool of yourself? Go as far's you like!" interrupted Ellen +tartly, closing her door in his face.</p> + +<p>So it chanced that as Joan stood at the threshold sometime later waiting +for Ellen to follow downstairs, making an unconscious picture in her +sweeping hat and her soft furs between the graceful pillars of the +lintel, Mr. Blair appeared nonchalantly before her. And the effect of +the encounter was so great that, intending to lift his hat and toss away +his cigarette with a Chesterfieldian carelessness, he instead tossed his +hat and lifted his cigarette,—a catastrophe that robbed him for the +moment of the powers of speech and motion. He had not expected to follow +out Ellen's program quite so literally.</p> + +<p>Joan's training stood her in good stead. Her lips twitched but remained +in control. The elaborateness of his surprise, together with Ellen's +rather guilty countenance, had already informed her that she was the +victim of a plot, into which she walked obligingly.</p> + +<p>"Well met, Mr. Blair! I wonder whether you have anything very important +to do? If not, <i>would</i> you be good enough to take me home? Ellen really +ought not to go out in the night air with her rheumatism."</p> + +<p>"Dee—lighted," murmured Mr. Blair dazedly, in the language of his +favorite hero. He recovered his hat, and with it some of his former +aplomb. Indeed, as he walked away with his prize, solicitously steering +her by one elbow, he was able to wink back over his shoulder at his +fellow-conspirator.</p> + +<p>It was the first time that he had been really alone with the One and +Only. Hitherto their conversation had taken place against a background +of other conversations, which were somehow helpful. Even when he had +paid his two party calls in rapid succession, there had been others +present; and though the inexplicable step-mother had quite obviously +made opportunities for him to cut her out of the herd, so to speak, his +nerve at the critical moment had always failed him.</p> + +<p>It failed him now. He strolled beside her gloriously, as if on air, but +in utter silence. He racked his brain for suitable conversation to +offer, and for suitable language to offer it in. Somehow her crisp, +cleancut speech (Joan had quite abandoned Southernism) made his own seem +hideous, drawling, uncouth.</p> + +<p>Again Joan came, more or less, to the rescue.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Blair," she suggested gently, "if you don't mind I'd rather not be +helped along quite so much. My elbow, you know!—I sha'n't stumble, I +think. The sidewalks seem quite smooth."</p> + +<p>He withdrew his hand as if it had been stung.</p> + +<p>"Pardon <i>me</i>!" he gasped. "I didn't mean—</p> + +<p>"I know—some girls like to be assisted," she said rather remorsefully +(but after all a protégé must be taught!) "You'll find most of us, +however, rather prefer our independence."</p> + +<p>"Votes for Women?" he suggested in all respect.</p> + +<p>Joan dimpled, thinking suddenly of Mrs. Rossiter. "Well, something like +that. Elbows for women, anyway!" she murmured nonsensically.</p> + +<p>Again the conversation languished, being confined on Archie's part +entirely to Yea, yea and Nay, nay.</p> + +<p>Joan was both amused and bored. It had been for some time quite evident +to her that this simple soul was not indifferent to her charms; but +there was something so boyish about his devotion, so grateful and +unobtrusive, that it did not trouble her in the least. Rather the +contrary. It reminded her of "cases" the younger girls at the Convent +got up on older girls, who were in turn expected to act toward their +satellites as guide, philosopher, and friend. Joan had always been very +nice to her satellites. This one should come to no harm through her. +Indeed, she intended that he should come ultimately to much good, for +she really liked him. But this first tongue-tied stage of his admiration +was a little trying to both, and she was relieved when the Darcy house +came into view.</p> + +<p>Not until then, with their parting imminent, did he summon up sufficient +ease to tell her of his recent stroke of fortune. She received it +pleasantly, as a teacher listens to tales of prowess on the part of a +pupil.</p> + +<p>"Sales-manager!—isn't that nice, Mr. Blair? I must get my step-mother +to try some of that polish of yours. She loves things to glisten. And +you'll have a lot more money, won't you? Splendid! So now," she +suggested, as Ellen had suggested, "you'll probably be moving somewhere +else."</p> + +<p>She had her eye on him, though, for it may be remembered that Joan had a +theory of her own as to why this up-and-coming young man continued to +live in an attic in the slums.</p> + +<p>He shook his head. "I'll stay in the old place. Even if I hadn't lived +there ever since I can remember, I think I'd stay anyway."</p> + +<p>"Why?" asked Joan, walking more slowly.</p> + +<p>"Well, there's something sort of homey about it. I've got a fireplace in +my room, you see, and I like the little panes in the windows, and the +big sills—they're just as good as tables—And that funny old twisty +staircase. Sometimes at night when everybody in the house is asleep you +can hear the steps creaking, as if people were coming up and down. I +like that. And the old tree outside taps on the roof as if it were +saying, 'Here I am, kid. Go on to sleep!'"—He broke off apologetically. +"You'll think me a nut, Miss Darcy, talking like this! But you see +everything that's ever happened to me happened in that room, and I feel +as if—well, as if I weren't exactly alone in it."</p> + +<p>Joan nodded, her eyes bright with understanding. She had not expected +him to share her feeling for the old house, or to be so sensitive to the +influence of environment. She walked still slower. It was too bad their +talk should come to an end just as it was showing signs of life.</p> + +<p>"Were you born there?" she asked craftily.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no. No, I don't know just where I was born. On the road, I reckon. +You see my mother was an actress—"</p> + +<p>But despite her lagging feet they were by this time at the Darcy door, +which was promptly opened by an attentive parlor maid.</p> + +<p>"I'm so sorry I can't ask you in," said Joan.</p> + +<p>"No, indeed!—I didn't expect that," answered humble Archie.</p> + +<p>Joan frowned. It may be recalled that humility was one of her dislikes.</p> + +<p>"It's just that I happen to have an engagement for the evening," she +explained; for in Louisville fashion she portioned out her free nights +among certain admirers who are known in the vernacular as "fireside +companions"—gentlemen who for reasons of poverty, or thrift, or +especial devotion, do not offer the ladies of their choice any other +form of entertainment than their company. Only on Sunday afternoons are +the youth of a Southern city free to call unheralded and <i>en masse</i> on +girls with any pretensions to popularity.</p> + +<p>Joan explained this custom to Archibald, remarking with an encouraging +smile, "So you see if you really want to talk to a girl alone, your only +chance is to engage an evening in advance."</p> + +<p>"I see," said Archie.</p> + +<p>And not until the door had closed behind her did he suddenly smite +himself upon the brow, ejaculating, "Dumbhead! Boob! Ivory above the +neck, pure, solid ivory!"</p> + +<p>For it penetrated to him that out of the kindness of her heart his lady +had made for him an opening, an opportunity, which would certainly never +occur again.</p> + +<p>"The fact is," he muttered, turning away from that closed door, "I'm +about as well fitted for society as Balaam's ass!"</p> + +<p>An opinion in which at the moment Miss Darcy would have thoroughly +concurred.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + + +<p>Relations between them might have ended then and there, for Joan was not +in the habit of casting her pearls before swine, and the confidence was +rather crushed out of Archibald by a realization of his gross stupidity.</p> + +<p>But Effie May was as persistent in her fancies as in other matters.</p> + +<p>"Where's the eary one?" she asked Joan one Sunday afternoon following +the usual influx of visitors. "He hasn't been around since I don't know +when."</p> + +<p>"How should I know? Probably towing some lady-typist by her elbow to a +church social," replied Joan, yawning.</p> + +<p>"You may be sure it's a <i>lady</i> typist, then, and not the other sort," +commented her step-mother. "I like that boy!"</p> + +<p>"You seem to," murmured Joan, reflecting idly that it was a compliment +Mr. Blair did not appear to return; which had been one of the few things +in common between them.</p> + +<p>But later Effie May had something to say on the subject that interested +her more. She said it to her husband in Joan's hearing.</p> + +<p>"You remember that young chap we had at the Horse show one night, whom +Joan met on the train? Name of Blair?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, my love. An agreeable fellow, though not quite, I should +say, to the manner born? However, he had a respect for his elders quite +unusual nowadays," said the Major affably, recalling his personal +success with the young man. "And a keen sense of humor, as I recall, +very keen!"</p> + +<p>That, as it happened, was one thing Archibald did not possess. He had in +its place a hearty laugh, a passion for "jokes," and a generous +appreciation of jesting intentions on the part of others, which +doubtless served him quite as well.</p> + +<p>"That's the chap. Well, some of the boys who were here this afternoon +were telling me that he's quite a scrapper. Seems some of the young +sports about town have been putting the gloves on with him, down to the +Y. M. C. A.—Johnny Carmichael and that lot—and the other night they +got up a match between him and a regular pug, just to see how good he +was. Seems he stood up to him three rounds, and come out of it with his +nose a pulp and his front teeth gone, askin' for more!"</p> + +<p>"Heavens!" murmured Joan. "Those infantile front teeth?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I guess they stuck 'em in again," said Effie May, "but I sure would +have liked to see that match! The boys were quite enthusiastic."</p> + +<p>"Did he win?" asked Joan.</p> + +<p>"Win?—against a professional? Lord, child, he was doin' well to stand +up to him one round, let alone three! It was Dan McCabe, Dick."</p> + +<p>"McCabe? You don't say," repeated the Major, highly interested. "Blair +must be pretty good, then!"</p> + +<p>In his younger days Richard Darcy had been something of a devotee of the +gloves himself, and still kept up an interest in ring affairs. Boxing, +he held, was one of the few exercises really becoming a gentleman; and +he had sometimes modestly called the attention of this decadent +golfing-generation to a figure any boy of them might well envy, as a +result of the sport of kings.</p> + +<p>Not latterly, however. Of the Major's more recent figure, the less said +the better. Even the mild exertions of the one-step caused him to +perspire and puff audibly, and he had requested that the cheval mirror +be removed from his dressing-room—a rather serious sign with Richard +Darcy. His wife in vain suggested riding, golf, massage. The Major +preferred the expedient of doing without his mirror.</p> + +<p>She had in mind this growing <i>embonpoint</i> when she spoke of Archibald's +accomplishment—as well as several other matters, being a woman who +thought nothing of killing two and even three birds with one stone.</p> + +<p>"Dickie, I been thinking how nice it would be if you were to put on the +gloves with young Blair sometimes? I've always wanted to see you box."</p> + +<p>"Pooh," he murmured, flattered, however, by the suggestion. "I couldn't +interest him now. And before all those young whipper-snappers at the +gymnasium? I'd be a laughing-stock!"</p> + +<p>"Why not get him to come up here? Fix up a sort of gymnasium in the +attic?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, do!" urged Joan, who had been not a little troubled by the recent +change in her father. "It will be just what you need, Dad, and such fun! +I'm sure you could 'interest' him still."</p> + +<p>The Major's eye kindled a little. He was always responsive to any belief +in himself. "You think so, Dollykins? Well, possibly, possibly—But you +speak as if Blair were to be had for the asking, my love!"</p> + +<p>"Well, I think he is," remarked Effie May with a twinkle at her +step-daughter. "Depends upon who does the asking—What do you say, +Joan?"</p> + +<p>"It would have to be done in words of one syllable," murmured the girl +unkindly, "but I'll try."</p> + +<p>So that again Archibald had occasion to shake hands with Fate; and found +himself regularly every Saturday afternoon at four o'clock beneath the +roof of his One and Only, gently exercising her parent, with every +likelihood of tea to follow.</p> + +<p>Not that Archibald had any liking for tea. On the first occasion of his +accepting it, he had asked for four lumps of sugar in his cup, +explaining that plenty of sweetness took the worst of the taste away. +But he had firmly declined the Major's sympathetic suggestion to +substitute a highball, having his own quaint notions of the proprieties. +One of them was that no gentleman drinks liquor in the presence of a +lady. It was a genuine shock to him to find that Major Darcy did so, +freely: and what he felt when Mrs. Darcy joined her husband in the act, +he was fortunately able to dissemble. It merely confirmed an earlier +impression.</p> + +<p>Joan gave up riding on Saturday afternoons to stay at home and umpire +the boxing matches. She felt that her father ought to be encouraged. +Besides, it rather interested her to see her protégé in a new light. +Once stripped to the waist and gloved—(she soon got used to the sight +of her father in a pink silk undershirt and Archibald in no shirt at +all), the young man lost all his awkwardness and shyness and appeared +quite a different person, confident, masterly.</p> + +<p>"Look out, Major! I'm after your nose this time," he would smile. "Guard +yourself. Here's where I get it!"</p> + +<p>"Damned if you do!" the other would cry, feinting desperately, but +without avail. Archie always got it.</p> + +<p>At first the girl gasped with alarm whenever his glove plopped into +smart contact with her father's face or body; but she soon saw that only +the skill of the younger man went into these blows, never his strength. +Richard Darcy saw it too, and was mortified.</p> + +<p>"You're playing off on me, damn your young hide!" he would pant. "You +wait—I'll show you yet, I'll show you yet!"</p> + +<p>And when on one proud occasion he did "show him," to the extent of +bringing an unexpected trickle of blood from Archie's nose, Joan let out +a cheer of triumph—in which the victim joined with a will.</p> + +<p>"Bully!" he cried. "That was a sockdollager! Dare you to do it again, +Major! Doubledare you!"</p> + +<p>Seeing him so, the play of powerful muscles under skin as white as a +girl's, the joyous grin on his big, plain face, the sheer good-nature of +him, intent on giving an older man what he called a "run for his money," +and yet as controlledly gentle with him as a great dog playing with a +child, Joan began to understand why Johnny Carmichael and his friends +were enthusiastic over Archie Blair. He was that rarest of finds, a good +playfellow.</p> + +<p>The companionship of men with men was something she suddenly envied. Why +couldn't women put on gloves and knock some of the pettiness out of each +other, the small spites and vanities and jealousies? She would very much +have enjoyed letting a little blood out of the nose of, say, Emily +Carmichael! In a perfectly friendly spirit, of course....</p> + +<p>The boxing matches accomplished several results. They were extremely +good for the Major, reducing his waist by several inches and so +increasing his staying-powers that he could eat his way through dinner +from <i>hors d'œuvre</i> to <i>crème de menthe</i> without losing breath. They +were good for Joan, giving her a new perspective on male human nature, +which since the episode of Eduard Desmond she had been in danger of +regarding rather cynically. And if they weren't altogether good for +Archie Blair—well, Archibald was a young man quite accustomed to taking +care of himself.</p> + +<p>He would have faced greater perils than he did for the privilege of +spending a glorious hour under the same roof with Miss Darcy—whom he +continued to call "Miss Darcy" even in his secret thoughts, though she +had lately formed the delightful habit of addressing him as "Archie."</p> + +<p>She had also presented him kindly with a small photograph of herself on +a post-card, taken for the purpose of showing Stefan Nikolai the furs he +had sent her, and incidentally the ringless condition of her left hand. +(It was her answer to his letter about the phagocytes.)</p> + +<p>Archie did not exhibit this treasure, even to his friend Ellen Neal, +regarding it in the nature of a sacred trust. He had made for it a frame +with a little door which locked, and which greatly intrigued the good +woman for several days; until she found that the back of it came off +quite easily.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> + + +<p>In their weekly chats over her tea-table (from which the Major early +excused himself, possibly under wifely suggestion), Joan got into the +way of being quite confidential with Archibald. She told him one day how +lonely she was for women's companionship.</p> + +<p>"At school I had too many chums, and here I haven't any," she +complained. "I really don't know why!"</p> + +<p>"Maybe they're sort of jealous," was his suggestion.</p> + +<p>"Why, Archie! You're getting positively subtle with your compliments," +she laughed. "No, it can't be that. I'm no 'man's woman!'—I'm done with +that forever! They're welcome to every beau in town for all of me, and I +<i>never</i> flirt with other people's property. I'm really the ideal +companion nowadays—no family complete without me.... Of course I see a +lot of girls around at parties, and they're friendly enough, even make +rather a fuss over me. But—that's all! Somehow we don't seem to be +playing the same game."</p> + +<p>"Ish ga bibble," murmured Archie, consolingly if cryptically. "What do +<i>you</i> care, when you've got 'em all nailed to the mast? But I know just +what you mean, Miss Darcy. Used to feel sort of that way myself when I +went with Miss Gracie or Miss Ella, or any of them from the office. +Before I knew your sort."</p> + +<p>"So you think," said Joan, amused, "it's the sort that's wrong, not me?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing wrong with <i>you</i>!" he declared, with a comforting finality.</p> + +<p>Being a person with whom sympathy was always active rather than passive, +however, he took her case earnestly under consideration; with rather +surprising results.</p> + +<p>Some days later—it was one of the still February mornings that come to +Kentucky as an earnest that spring is on the way, with cardinals fluting +from the evergreens and a rusty bluebird or two on the lookout for +summer quarters—Joan was called to the telephone to speak to no less a +personage than Miss Emily Carmichael.</p> + +<p>"I hear you've been riding all winter, Miss Darcy," she said. "I'm so +sorry not to have known it before, so that we might have gone out +together. So much pleasanter than riding with a groom, don't you think!"</p> + +<p>Joan agreed that it would have been.</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't we make up for lost time at once—this morning, for +instance? Shall I come by for you at eleven o'clock? Very well."</p> + +<p>Joan hung up the telephone, mortified by her own pusillanimous behavior. +Here was a golden opportunity to snub the girl who had found her +"mixed," and instead of doing so she had meekly consented to be +patronized. But at the word her head went up with something of the +Major's dignity. Miss Carmichael would find it rather difficult to +patronize Miss Darcy!</p> + +<p>Miss Carmichael, however, seemed to have no intention of trying. She +exclaimed with delight over the pretty Peggy, sleek as satin despite her +winter coat, and dancing with pleasure to be out once more in equine +society. (With the first approach of winter, the class in equestrianism +had disbanded).</p> + +<p>"Mr. Blair was telling me the other day about your father's wonderful +Christmas present to you," she said. "It must be pleasant to be able to +afford a real saddle-horse! My good old Dobbin has to pull Mother's +station-wagon, too, you know, which is bad for his gaits. It's <i>horrid</i> +to have only one horse in the stables!"</p> + +<p>"You speak as if you were poverty-stricken," smiled Joan, thinking of +the great Carmichael house, with its walled court and double galleries +and outbuildings sufficient to house a retinue of servants.</p> + +<p>"Oh, we are," sighed the other. "Absolutely! Why, do you know, I've +never been to Europe in my life?"</p> + +<p>Joan wondered what this girl would think of real poverty, which yearned +in terms, not of trips to Europe, but of new shoes and unattainable +spring bonnets!—And then she happened to notice, standing at the curb +as they passed, a girl of about her age with a shawl over her head, a +baby on one arm and a child dragging at the other, gazing listlessly at +the fortunate ones who had time to be young.</p> + +<p>Joan hastily abandoned comparisons.</p> + +<p>"If you've only one horse, what does your groom ride?" she asked, having +been rather impressed by the mention of a groom.</p> + +<p>"A bicycle," smiled Emily. "Of course he's not a real groom, only our +houseboy, Joe. It's terribly mortifying to his pride. 'Miss Em'ly, +s'posin' we was to meet some one what knows us?' is his constant plea; +so I ride in out-of-the-way roads to spare his feelings. If we do meet +acquaintances, he drops far behind and pretends he isn't with me. When +old Dob feels his oats, poor Joe has a fearful time keeping up. I hear +him panting and gasping behind me, 'Woa thar, woa thar, Dobbin! Gawd +sakes, Miss Em'ly, don' you know a bicycle wa'n't never <i>meant</i> to +gallop?'"</p> + +<p>Joan was both astonished and amused. She could not fit the picture into +her conception of the Carmichael elegance. "<i>I</i> shouldn't bother with a +groom at all," she murmured.</p> + +<p>"Of course you wouldn't! But you see I've got old-fashioned parents who +can't imagine a young girl being able to go about alone in safety. They +suspect a bandit of lurking behind every bush for the purpose of +carrying off their precious Emily. So far no bandit has had the courage +to attempt it!" she sighed. "Do you know, what I envy you most is your +independence?"</p> + +<p>"My independence? But that's just what I wish I had!" cried Joan, and +presently found herself confiding in this stranger something that she +had hitherto kept to herself—her determination to earn her own living.</p> + +<p>The other girl listened with sympathy, too well-bred to ask questions, +but quick to understand.</p> + +<p>"It doesn't seem fair," she sighed. "We girls haven't a chance at all. +If you were a boy you would have been prepared in some way, of course. +In our family, for instance, my brother Johnny, who isn't half as +intelligent as I am (and that's not bragging, either), was put most +unwillingly through college, and given three extra years at law, and +sent around the world—all to prepare him for a career of horse-racing +and wild oats generally. He's a dear, you know, but he must have his +little wild oats.... And what did I get? Two years of an Eastern +finishing school, where I learned to dress better than we can afford, to +sing and play a little, and to speak French with a fair accent! I wasn't +even prepared for—the thing that's expected of us," she added, +flushing. "I've never cooked a meal nor made a bed in my life, Mother +proceeding on the theory that if you learn how to do such things you'll +have to do them—No fear! No sensible, practical, poor young man would +ever have the courage to ask such a useless thing as me to share his +humble lot!"</p> + +<p>Joan looked at her curiously. She was a tall, rather statuesque type, as +so many Kentucky women are; not beautiful, but with a splendid figure, a +gallant poise of the head, an air of race and elegance that associated +oddly with the idea of cooking and bedmaking.</p> + +<p>"You'll simply have to choose the sort of husband that hasn't a humble +lot," Joan suggested.</p> + +<p>"Choose?" the other shrugged. "Where am I to find him? Not in this part +of the world, evidently. You see I've been out several years, my dear. +And Mother's far too well-bred to take me about husband hunting, even if +she were able to afford it—No, no, I shall simply subside gracefully +into old maidhood, as so many of us do nowadays. Haven't you noticed the +numbers of old maids about here—charming, cultivated women who have +waited too long for a possible partner to come and discover them? +Filling their lives with Bridge and charity and committee work! Useful, +I suppose, and contented enough, but—It isn't what one dreams of! Mere +<i>pis aller</i>.... And I don't see how the ballot's going to help, do you?"</p> + +<p>"Except by changing the fashion in female education," mused Joan. +"Meanwhile we've just got to help ourselves. Pull ourselves up by our +own boot-straps."</p> + +<p>"And we haven't even got the boot-straps!" laughed the other, +ruefully....</p> + +<p>This was not the last of their rides together. The unexpected +understanding of this girl, whose lot in life Joan had long secretly +envied, broke down the artificial barriers between them, and paved the +way for a real and lasting friendship. Between them they settled many +problems of the universe, while Dobbin and Pegasus respectively trotted +and singlefooted about the parks or along a road where the Ohio swept, +swollen with the winter's snows, almost on a level with them, overlooked +by splendid cliffs where the city's rich have been wise enough to build +homes that would do credit to the château country of France.</p> + +<p>Sometimes Emily took her into one of these houses for a cup of tea, +occasions which filled Effie May with a candid gratification; for +hitherto the Carmichael circle had remained impregnable to her siege.</p> + +<p>"It certainly was a good idea of yours, getting the child that horse!" +she commented to her husband. "There's something genteel about a +riding-horse—more so than a limousine, though I'm sure I can't see why. +Heaven knows it's cheaper! But even that old plug the Carmichael girl +rides has a kind of air about it."</p> + +<p>"Horses," replied the Major sententiously, "are the only aristocrats +left in the modern world."</p> + +<p>Effie May presently suggested to Archie that he purchase himself a horse +and try riding, since he was so fond of exercise. But Archie put the +tempting idea away from him. What time had he for the diversions of the +idle? Business before pleasure! He had recently, and for reasons that +were a little vague in his own mind, decided to become rich.</p> + +<p>Joan was so preoccupied with her new friendship that she had rather +neglected the boxing matches of late, which presently languished. The +Major missed the stimulating presence of a young feminine audience. So +that Archie spent no more glorious half-hours over a tea-table.</p> + +<p>But he did not complain. It was something to know that he had presented +his lady with the thing her heart most craved. He could, had he so +chosen, have tagged the unconscious Miss Carmichael with a card such as +sometimes came to Joan in modest boxes of flowers, bearing the +inscription: "From a Friend."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> + + +<p>Miss Carmichael presently invited Joan to a meeting of an organization +which she had occasionally referred to as "The Jabberwocks" though it +had been christened by a more imposing name; a group of girls and young +married women who met fortnightly for the apparent purpose of talking +all at once about anything that came into their heads. And as a great +deal came into their heads, the bewildered guest decided that its +present name was aptly chosen. However, though the talk, disconnected +and inconclusive, came out for the most part "at that same door wherein +it went," it was to Joan like hearing a native tongue spoken in a +foreign land. She listened eagerly. Ideas came up for discussion, books, +plays, music, even politics, had a turn; instead of the usual, "Who is +asked to So-and-so's dinner?" and "What are you going to wear at +such-and-such an affair?" which she had begun to consider the chronic +conversation of her sex and age.</p> + +<p>Yet the Jabberwocks were by no means bluestockings (a class of persons +which Joan held in some dread). They frequently were invited to +So-and-so's dinner, and usually managed to appear extremely well-clad at +such-and-such an affair; and the passion they evinced for bon-bons and +weak tea would alone have protected them from the charge of +over-seriousness.</p> + +<p>Joan, after politely maintaining silence till she could bear it no more, +presently burst into a certain discussion with an apt quotation on the +subject from Stefan Nikolai. She was unprepared for the respectful +silence that greeted her remark.</p> + +<p>"You say," murmured somebody, "that Stefan Nikolai told you that? You +know him, then, Miss Darcy?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes. Very well indeed."</p> + +<p>"How perfectly wonderful!" sighed the Jabberwocks.</p> + +<p>"You see," explained Emily, "we've been studying him all winter. Oh, if +we'd only known about you earlier!"</p> + +<p>Joan laughed. It had not occurred to her that her friend was a person +people met in solemn conclave to "study." (Why it should be that +personal acquaintance with a celebrity invariably dims his luster to the +affectionate eye is a puzzle which may be left to the psychologists.)</p> + +<p>"Do tell us what he looks like!" demanded the Jabberwocks in unison. "Is +he handsome?" (From which it may be gathered that the club did not +devote itself to things intellectual, exclusively.)</p> + +<p>"Why, yes—yes, I suppose he is," said Joan, pausing to reflect. "He's +distinguished-looking, quite foreign, you know; with very expressive +eyes and a fine, sensitive sort of face. He's not like our men +exactly—and yet he doesn't look Jewish. You know his mother was a +Christian. But his father was born in the Ghetto, somewhere in Russia, +and Stefan actually worked in a sweat-shop when he first came to this +country.—He was the son of a rabbi, though."</p> + +<p>"They always are," murmured Emily <i>en passant</i>. "Rabbis always seem to +have such large families. Rabbis and rabbits—did you ever notice?"</p> + +<p>The Jabberwocks sprung upon her tooth and nail. "Don't be coarse!" "Yes, +Em, it's really too bad of you!—you're always spoiling things with your +sarcasm." "Do go on, Miss Darcy!—It's so romantic."</p> + +<p>One little placid-faced girl, stitching on a baby-dress, said quietly, +"We ought to be nicer to Jews than we are, I think, girls. They're +really wonderful!—so clever, you know."</p> + +<p>"Yes," agreed Joan, "they are rather wonderful. There seems to be an +intellectual force about them, a curious inner fire, that nothing can +dampen, not even sweat-shops—I sometimes wish I were a Jew myself."</p> + +<p>They stared at her in utter astonishment. "Wish you were a Jew? Why, +Miss Darcy! Haven't you any prejudice against them at all?"</p> + +<p>"Prejudice—against a race of several billion people?" Joan was +astonished in her turn. A singularly tolerant mother, and later, life in +a little conventual world which had its own standards and viewpoints, +had sheltered her from much of the contagion of current opinion. "That +<i>would</i> be a large order!" she smiled. "No, I can't seem to do my +prejudicing in wholesale lots. But of course I have seen Jews one could +cheerfully do without—the oily sort. And Christians too—haven't you?" +She dismissed the subject with a shrug. "Since you're so interested in +Stefan Nikolai, I wonder if you'd like to hear a letter from him. +There's one in my muff that the postman brought just as I started."</p> + +<p>The Jabberwocks were enchanted.</p> + +<p>"You won't mind if it's quite personal? They sometimes are."</p> + +<p>"So much the better!..."</p> + +<p>It seemed to be distinctly personal, as Joan realized after she had got +well into it. Mr. Nikolai wrote to thank her for the little picture of +the furs and the ringless hand.</p> + +<blockquote><p>The fox who rendered up his life to furnish forth a tippet +would cry, "O death, where is thy sting?" if he could see +himself now!—By the way, what color have your eyes become? Do +they still match my aquamarine, or must it be gray sapphires +the next time?</p></blockquote> + +<p>("Dear me," murmured Joan, "perhaps I'd better skip!"</p> + +<p>"Not a word!" breathed the Jabberwocks, sitting forward.)</p> + +<p>She read manfully on, wondering what had come over her friend to make +him so particularly—well, personal was the word. The ringless hand +seemed especially to take his fancy. He referred to it several times, +and Joan could not well explain these references to her audience. She +left them to draw their own conclusions; which they did, with some +exchanging of glances.</p> + +<p>There was an audible breath after she had finished. Emily Carmichael +voiced the Jabberwocks when she asked casually, "Did you say he was +young, Joan?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear, no! Quite old. Forty or fifty, or thereabouts. An uncle-ish +sort of person."</p> + +<p>"Goodness," murmured somebody. "Fancy having an uncle like that!..."</p> + +<p>Joan was asked to meetings of the club again. In fact, she was shortly +invited to become a Jabberwock herself, having, without quite realizing +why, been promoted from the rank of mere débutante to that of +Interesting Person. In this way she came into contact with a phase of +Louisville society strange to her father, strange even to the Misses +Darcy, expert as they were in the ways of the best people. She learned +that lately many little groups such as this club had come into +existence, formed of women who had grown tired of more superficial forms +of amusement, and had come together in the vague pursuit of something +better.</p> + +<p>"Do you know, I think we're rather in a transition state nowadays," +explained Emily Carmichael. "It's as if we were waiting for something +real to happen, marking time. The town's growing up, just as people grow +up, and getting tired of childish games—Of course there's always been +plenty of intellectual life here, as there is in most old Southern +places where people have had leisure for books. We've even produced our +share of literature."</p> + +<p>(Joan nodded, recalling her poet at the Country Club, and remembering +several names which are usually associated less with Louisville than +with the world of letters.)</p> + +<p>"But heretofore the intellectual people have been privileged characters, +set apart and labeled, and expected to be a little odd about their +clothes and hair—<i>you</i> know! It's only lately that we ordinary folk +have concerned ourselves with—well, culture, I suppose it is, though +one hates the word! And there is something almost pathetic in the way we +herd together to pursue it, as if to give each other countenance!"</p> + +<p>"Not half as pathetic as trying to pursue it alone," said Joan, who +knew.</p> + +<p>"Anyway, it's distinctly smart nowadays to read and have opinions and +know something, even in our most frivolous circles—thank heaven!"</p> + +<p>"'Business of being a high-brow,' as Archie Blair would say," smiled +Joan.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Archie Blair! Isn't he absurd?"</p> + +<p>Joan suddenly found herself on the defensive. It was all well enough for +her to laugh at her protégé, but she did not intend to extend the +privilege to others.</p> + +<p>"I like him very much," she said, with decision. "He's honest and nice. +I believe I like him better than any man I know."</p> + +<p>"So do I," said Emily Carmichael unexpectedly. "But that doesn't keep +him from being funny!—Do you know, Joan, often as we have him to +dinner, and promptly as he pays his party-calls (who taught him that, I +wonder?) he has never once set foot in this house just casually, of his +own accord! I believe he thinks it wouldn't be 'respectful' of him. And +yet I don't seem to awe him particularly, and it certainly isn't +Mother's lorgnon—he positively teases her, and she likes it! The big +house and that sort of thing wouldn't impress him—he's not enough of a +snob. And yet he will not come to see me. Queer, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>Joan admitted the queerness, though she was conscious of a slight +feeling of gratification. She believed she understood, having once heard +Archibald express rather forcibly his opinion of the sort of man who +"went with" more than one girl at a time. While he could hardly be said +to be "going with" herself, he had made little concealment of the fact +that he was entirely at her disposal. She liked him the better for not +being at Emily's as well.</p> + +<p>"So you've been having him to dinner?" she murmured. "He never told me +that!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, he wouldn't. Haven't you noticed that for all his artlessness, +he never really does tell much about himself? Or about anything else! +That's one reason he's so popular with Johnny and all of them, I think. +He's a sort of confidential agent to the crowd. I know that when Father +can't find Johnny sometimes" (she blushed, and Joan nodded +sympathetically) "he always calls up Archie Blair, who presently +produces him. Sometimes he doesn't bring him home for several days, and +telephones that he's got him at his rooms—recuperating, I suppose. +Johnny swears by him, of course. I've heard of the wonderful Archie for +years, but never saw him until that night at your ball.... It was +splendid of you to have him there, Joan!—one of the things that made me +want to know you better."</p> + +<p>Joan waived this compliment. One would suppose him Emily's discovery +instead of her own!</p> + +<p>"How did your brother happen to know him?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, boys always know each other—they're so much more democratic than +girls. Horrid little snips we used to be, remember?—turning up our +noses at any other children who didn't go to dancing school?"</p> + +<p>"I did not go to dancing school myself," remarked Joan quietly. "My +mother taught me."</p> + +<p>"Then your mother must have been Queen of the Fairies!" said her friend, +rather prettily. "Johnny and Archie first met, I believe, upon the field +of battle. There used to be a continuous warfare on in this neighborhood +between what were known as the Alley Gang and the Av'noo Kids. We +expected Johnny to be brought in any day a mangled corpse—he being the +leader of the Av'noo Kids. One day the Alley Gang caught him and his +cohorts rather depleted as to numbers, and were naturally engaged in +wiping them off the face of the earth, when the paper-boy came up on his +wheel. With a whoop he dropped wheel and papers and joined in the fray. +The Alley Gang were getting the worst of it when policemen arrived—it +seems some windows had been smashed. The other boys scattered, but the +rescuer dared not desert his papers and so got caught; and Johnny came +panting home to get Father to bail him out of jail. That's the first we +heard of Archie Blair."</p> + +<p>"Odd that he didn't side with the Alley Gang, wasn't it?" commented +Joan.</p> + +<p>"Why, don't you see?—the Av'noo Kids were getting the worst of it. +That's Archie!..."</p> + +<p>Joan decided to be a little kinder to her protégé the next time she saw +him. It is an odd fact that we frequently do not appreciate our +possessions until others appear to value them unduly.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> + + +<p>Their next meeting occurred at the Carmichael house at dinner. Emily, +with the approach of the Easter season, had one day announced her +intention of giving a dinner in Joan's honor, greatly to the younger +girl's pleasure. It meant that she had won not only the friendship of +Emily, but that of her mother as well; a rather more difficult feat.</p> + +<p>Major Darcy was equally pleased with this compliment, which he +characteristically accepted for himself.</p> + +<p>"It is very gratifying to have old friends take one's child to their +hearts in this fashion—very gratifying! There are no better people in +the State than the Carmichaels, my dear. It is true that I have seen +less of the Judge than I could have wished since my return—we were +school-boys together. But I felt that soon or late there was bound to be +some recognition. A fine fellow, and a most able lawyer! Yes, yes. And +his wife—charming, charming! Though a trifle stiff for my fancy. A +<i>little</i> more suavity of manner. She was a Dillingham, you know. Her +father represented us at one time at the Court of St. James."</p> + +<p>"Oh! Is that why she's so airy?" commented Effie May. "Well, I don't +mind airs if people have got a right to 'em, and nobody needs call on me +who don't want to. I'm real glad you're getting in with that crowd, +Joan. They're better than most 'old families'—they're still alive and +kicking and right at the top. And you've done it all by yourself, too! +Parties don't seem to do no good with their kind.... That's what comes +of being born a lady yourself."</p> + +<p>Something both wistful and generous in this speech touched the girl.</p> + +<p>"I had forgotten Mrs. Carmichael has not called on you, Effie May," she +said quickly. "Of course that makes it impossible for me to accept their +invitation. I'll tell Emily."</p> + +<p>And neither the Major's hasty reassurances or her step-mother's +remonstrances sufficed to alter her decision. She declined Emily's +invitation, and told her why.</p> + +<p>"You're quite right, and Mother'd be the first person to tell you so," +said Emily in instant approval. "I'll see what I can do. You know—" she +hesitated—"it isn't that there's any <i>reason</i> for her not to call. Of +course everybody knows who your father is, and he's perfectly +delightful, too! It's just—"</p> + +<p>"I understand," said Joan quietly.</p> + +<p>Emily put an arm around her. "My dear, I hope you do—This is such a +small puddle that the big frogs in it take themselves rather seriously. +And it's changing lately. It used to be that in the South money or the +lack of it meant almost nothing at all. Now it means a great deal—more, +I fancy, than in places where there's more of it. It doesn't seem to +take even one generation to make a gentleman nowadays—or what passes +for a gentleman. And so the old guard feel that they have to be +especially wary, to make a decided stand, in order to retain their own +identity. They're horribly afraid of being—not exterminated exactly, +but—"</p> + +<p>"Mixed?" suggested Joan. "I remember you called me 'mixed' the first +time you deigned to notice me."</p> + +<p>"Not the first time—the second," laughed Emily, blushing. "The first +time was on the train, and you had flowers and a box of candy, and I +hadn't.—The second time you were such a haughty little minx, with your +Eastern airs and your lovely clothes, and so utterly unaware of my +provincial existence, that I simply <i>had</i> to snub you somehow!"</p> + +<p>"Well!" gasped Joan. "That is exactly the way I felt about you!"</p> + +<p>"And there we were bristling our hackles at each other like two strange +puppy dogs, each waiting for the other to wag a tail. Anyway, I wagged +first!" cried Emily, kissing her friend. "And I'm not going to lose you +now, simply because my family hasn't been polite to your family."</p> + +<p>"You couldn't!" said Joan rather shyly, kissing her in return....</p> + +<p>As a result of this understanding, some days later the cards of both +Judge and Mrs. Jonathan Carmichael appeared on the Darcy hall table +(from which they were not removed until gray with age and exposure); to +be followed by an even more unequivocal bit of pasteboard which informed +Mrs. and Miss Darcy that Mrs. Carmichael would be at home on a certain +afternoon in April from four until six.</p> + +<p>Effie May's innocent joy in this trophy, and the frequency with which it +figured in subsequent conversations, filled Joan with a combination of +embarrassment and satisfaction. She felt that she had at last done +something to repay, in part, the obligation she owed to her father's +wife....</p> + +<p>She was not surprised to find Archibald at Emily's dinner. It was the +first time she had seen him under quite such a strong social light, +however, and she was a little nervous as to what the evening might bring +forth. "The Sign of the Dirty Spoon," did not sound like the most +reliable school of table manners.</p> + +<p>He sat opposite her, between Emily and a débutante of the type that +makes conversation an act of supererogation, and she was able without +seeming to do so to keep her protégé under a watchful eye.</p> + +<p>But to her relief he neither swallowed his spoon nor grasped his fork +with undue firmness, and seemed not at all perturbed by the variety of +the silver implements beside his plate. Joan was quite mystified by his +prowess; until she happened to notice that Emily also had him under a +watchful eye. With each course Emily promptly and ostentatiously +selected the proper implement, and Archie, after one glance out of the +corner of an eye, followed suit. It was perhaps fortunate that Emily was +his leader instead of the more impish Joan, who would have been impelled +by sheer force of circumstance to attempt her fish with her coffee +spoon.</p> + +<p>What surprised her even more than Archibald's table manners was his +conversation; a flow, a positive torrent, which poured on in a constant +stream, pausing only for the extreme exigencies of mastication, and not +always then. In the intervals of her own talk, Joan caught occasional +bits of this monologue. During the soup course it apparently concerned +itself with the South American armadillo, habits and habitat. During the +dessert it still appeared to linger about the armadillo.</p> + +<p>Now and then Emily cast a puzzled glance across at Joan, and the +débutante on his other side had long since been reduced to "Oh, really?" +and "I can hardly believe that!" But the armadillo went on and on.</p> + +<p>Joan had not suspected him of a concealed passion for natural history. +She could hardly wait for dinner to be over to investigate this new +development. But she had to call him to her side in so many words before +he ventured to join her. His eyes had been upon her most of the evening, +removing themselves hastily whenever they caught hers; but he did not +wish to intrude. It was quite sufficient for him to be in the same room +with her.</p> + +<p>She began at once, "Why and whence the armadillo, Archie? You sounded +like a University Extension lecture!"</p> + +<p>"Did I?" he grinned. "Was it all right? There were some things I forgot +to tell 'em. About the—"</p> + +<p>"Never mind!" said Joan hastily. "What I want to know is how you came by +the armadillo, anyway?"</p> + +<p>"I'm taking a correspondence course," he confessed.</p> + +<p>"In—in armadillos?"</p> + +<p>"No, in conversation," he said seriously. "Subjects of General +Discussion Suitable for Social Gatherings. I thought, seeing as I'm +going out in society so much these days, I ought to work up a different +line of talk than a fellow needs in business. The sort of things <i>you</i> +like, you know—not learned, exactly, but sort of high-brow.—Books and +all.—They send us out a subject once a week. 'All about the North Pole' +it was once. 'The Infant in Portraiture,' another time. Last week it was +'The Armadillo and Its Ways.' Great scheme, ain't it?"</p> + +<p>"Stupendous!" murmured Joan. "But, Archie, suppose you meet a +fellow-student at some—er, social gathering who happens to be pursuing +the same line of cultivation? Mightn't that be rather embarrassing?"</p> + +<p>"Give me away, you mean? What's the dif? I would give him away, too, and +we'd have something to talk about! Anyway, to know all about something's +a mighty fine idea, even if you don't get a chance to tell folks."</p> + +<p>Joan did not smile. She realized that here, manifesting itself no matter +how uncouthly, was the true spirit of research, a thing which she +respected above all other impulses of the human brain.</p> + +<p>She said softly, "Keep on with your correspondence course by all +means!—only, Archie, don't talk about it to other people, will you? +They might not understand."</p> + +<p>He gave her a quick little grin of comprehension. "Not on your life! It +don't pay to wise people up to what a boob you are.—Except you. I guess +you know, anyway!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX</h2> + + +<p>Joan, in yielding to family pressure temporarily, had by no means given +up the idea of what she had learned recently to call her economic +independence—a subject discussed frequently, if not very fruitfully, by +her friends the Jabberwocks, who preached rather more radically than +they practiced.</p> + +<p>"You see," as they explained when reproached by Joan with inconsistency, +"we believe in that sort of thing, of course! but it isn't as if we +really <i>needed</i> it." (Which was likewise the Jabberwockian attitude +toward suffrage.)</p> + +<p>Joan, however, not only believed in economic independence, but needed +it—as she reminded herself at gradually increasing intervals. She was +in danger, and knew it, of going over to Mammon. She had found it far +easier than she expected to live along from moment to moment, accepting +life as it came, enjoying the surface without questioning the depths. +The habit of mere material luxury is an insidious thing that fastens +upon one unaware; and Joan had all her father's taste for the good +things of life.</p> + +<p>She had begun to form many little extravagant ways, such, for instance, +as wearing silk stockings under her heaviest shoes, using a towel only +once before casting it aside, having her hair shampooed down town when +she was perfectly able to do it herself in her own bathroom. Not very +reckless extravagances, perhaps, from the point of view of her new +friends; but the sort of thing which the Misses Darcy observed with +something like awe.</p> + +<p>"I often think that if dear papa had been able to allow <i>us</i> to be less +careful—"; sighed Miss Virginia. "But of course in our day a silk +stocking was a silk stocking."</p> + +<p>"Indeed it was! Do you remember the lovely pair Aunt Sara Miggs brought +from abroad when she made the grand tour? White they were, Joan; and +when they began to get a little yellow with washing, she gave them to +me; and when I'd had plenty of use out of them, they were dipped pink +for Sister Euphie; and by the time Sister Virgie got them they had +become black."</p> + +<p>"With age?" asked Joan, rather startled.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, dear. With dye."</p> + +<p>"Where are the stockings of yester-year?" murmured the girl. "You can't +buy good old family standbys like that nowadays, not at any price. +Nothing but these miserable sleazy affairs that run if you look at +them—the cowards!"</p> + +<p>The Darcy ladies exchanged puzzled glances.</p> + +<p>"Cowards—stockings?" repeated Miss Iphigenia. "I'm afraid I don't quite +see the connection—"</p> + +<p>"There isn't any—don't mind me! And really it's quite a distinction to +wear cotton ones nowadays," hurriedly said Joan, who hoped sincerely +never to possess a cotton stocking again in all her life. And at the +same time planned to earn her own living in any honest fashion +available, no matter how lowly! Inconsistency was not a fault with which +she had the right to twit her fellow Jabberwocks....</p> + +<p>But she never quite forgot her destination in the pleasures of the +wayside. She did a good deal of quiet investigating, in a desultory way. +Teachers, librarians, bookkeepers, stenographers, all came under the +head of skilled labor, as she soon discovered, and required a course of +training—which Joan's step-mother would have to provide. It put these +professions out of the question.</p> + +<p>There were various small establishments in Louisville conducted by +acquaintances of hers, those "ladies in reduced circumstances" of which +every Southern town is full; tea-rooms, hat-shops, lingerie-shops, and +the like—a state of affairs which gave Major Darcy acute distress.</p> + +<p>"Imagine the daughters of my old friend Colonel Dinwiddie selling +bibelots to any vulgarian who has the effrontery to purchase them! What +can their brothers be thinking of?" he would groan. "Of course you will +be careful never to enter the shop, my dears! The poor ladies shall not +be embarrassed by having to wait on <i>my</i> wife and daughter, at least."</p> + +<p>But aside from her father's peculiar but not unique point of view, these +ventures required capital; which again put them out of the question.</p> + +<p>She heard now and then of certain well-paid positions in connection with +social service of various sorts; but these again seemed to require a +special training, or a special aptitude, which Joan did not believe +herself to possess. The very words "social service" had to her a +chilling, impersonal, busybodyish sound, almost as ugly as +"philanthropy." She was not of those to whom a rose by any other name +would smell as sweet. "Charity" sounded to her Christian, and warm, and +friendly; but she dreaded to offer "philanthropy," or "social service" +to the unfortunate almost as much as she would have dreaded to receive +such things. She decided that her <i>metier</i> was not good works.</p> + +<p>Clerks in stores, she learned, do not for the most part earn a living +wage. They are expected evidently to live at home, or to supplement +their salary in some other fashion (just how Joan was not sure, but she +entertained uneasy suspicions). By the time they become expert—heads of +departments, buyers, chief milliners, etc.,—they are of course more +than economically independent. But in the meanwhile....</p> + +<p>It was the meanwhile that troubled Joan. When she broke with her family, +she intended to do so with a magnificent completeness.</p> + +<p>Only two alternatives seemed open to her inexperience; the stage and +journalism. She weighed them one against the other without being able to +come to a decision. Joan was rather fond of making her own decisions, +and had all the impatience of her nineteen years with mature advice. But +at length she consulted Stefan Nikolai.</p> + +<p>"Please write me by return mail," (she commanded), "which you think +would offer me the most advantageous career, the stage or journalism."</p> + +<p>He obeyed on a post-card marked Christiania (his postmarks were +frequently the only indication of his whereabouts):</p> + +<p>"I should suggest the usual course in matrimony as a preliminary to any +career."</p> + +<p>Joan stamped her foot over this banality. It was something she might +have expected from a man of her father's generation, but hardly from +Stefan Nikolai. Particularly when he knew about Eduard, and must +certainly realize that her interest in man as a sex was over!</p> + +<p>Useful she still found them as dancing partners, to be sure, as +providers of candy and flowers and theaters, even to a certain extent as +companions, since one cannot very well sit about after nightfall +conversing with women, if only for appearance' sake. One or two she +might admit to her friendship, provided they remain sufficiently "in +their place," like Archie Blair. But as lovers, husbands! Never again. +Fortunately, sufficient phagocytes had been released to take care of +that.</p> + +<p>Hers was an attitude of mind which if generally entertained would, she +realized, mitigate against the welfare of the race; but judging from the +people about her, it would never be generally entertained—particularly +in Kentucky, and in Springtime.</p> + +<p>It is a season when matters of pairing off that may have hung fire +throughout the winter are apt to come rapidly to a climax. Each Sunday +paper brings forth its batch of Spring engagements; and Joan herself was +under the pleasing necessity of chilling off two of her admirers in +quick succession. One was a youth of the fireside-companion type, who +innocently fancied that there might be room for one more under the +hospitable Darcy roof. The other was the blond young man who had been +Joan's first partner, and who, having danced her successfully through +the season, saw no reason why he should not dance her successfully +through life.</p> + +<p>They met with small mercy at her hands. "Off with his head!" murmured +Joan cheerily to herself on each occasion, thinking of a certain evening +under a beech-tree by the light of the gibbous moon....</p> + +<p>These two unfortunates were not the only ones in her life who were to +suffer vicarious atonement for the sins of Eduard Desmond (and obscurely +of Richard Darcy as well).</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI</h2> + + +<p>It was in April that Archie Blair conceived the happy idea of purchasing +an automobile, thus combining business with pleasure most practically; a +modest secondhand affair of three good cylinders and one that missed, +but it shone (Archibald being in the paint and varnish business) with a +glossiness that advertised its owner afar off. And like the bicycle in +the song, it was "built for two."</p> + +<p>Archibald had no wish to intrude; still, an automobile is an automobile, +and it seemed to him that on a fine Spring evening almost any young lady +might like to ride in one, even if accustomed to limousines.</p> + +<p>Joan first became aware of this acquisition one fine day when it +appeared and reappeared and once again appeared passing the window where +she sat reading. Three times, like Hector about the walls of Troy, it +circled the block, smelling of its new paint and complaining loudly of +its missing cylinder; and at last Joan, puzzled by this persistence, +thought to glance at its driver. Clutching the wheel in a death grapple, +taking his eye from the traffic only long enough for a hopeful glance at +the house front as he passed, she recognized her friend in all the proud +modesty of ownership.</p> + +<p>Joan promptly put on a small hat and a large veil, and went out to take +a walk.</p> + +<p>"Miss Darcy! Say, Miss Darcy!" (Honk-honk—or rather Ooo-ooga-ooga!) +"Look who's here! Mine! Bought it myself!—I was just hoping I'd run +across you somewhere."</p> + +<p>"I trust you won't," murmured the lady.</p> + +<p>"Ha! Ha! Ha!" roared Archie, recognizing a jest. "Look out, or maybe I +will yet! Perhaps the safest place is inside," he suggested craftily, +and with some truth. Joan accepted the hint.</p> + +<p>"Learnt in three lessons!" proclaimed Archie, unable to resist the +temptation to brag a little. (An automobile of his own, all paid for, +and the One and Only beside him on its seat—who can blame the man?) +"Only got it last week, and if there's a part of little old Lizzie I +don't know about, it's because it isn't there, that's all! Of course I +can't take my eye off the road yet—" (this as a family party narrowly +escaped annihilation)—"but you won't mind my talking sort of over my +shoulder?"</p> + +<p>"I won't mind your talking any way at all—so long as it's not about +armadillos."</p> + +<p>Archie grinned. "Now you're joshing me!"</p> + +<p>"I never was more serious in my life. What's the subject this week?"</p> + +<p>But he declined to be drawn. "All that's just for social gatherings. +People don't have really to converse out-of-doors, do they?—Say, what +if we go out in the real country somewhere!—not parks, where there's +always so many things around, but a good straight empty road, where I +can step on her tail and let her rip—eh?"</p> + +<p>The idea seemed good to Joan. It was the sort of day when cities are an +abomination, and the soul of the veriest urbanite yearns to follow a +gipsy pateran.</p> + +<p>Once out of the complications of traffic, Archibald lost his caution, +and stepped on her tail and let her rip. The song of the birds, the +neigh of startled colts in the fields as they passed, the rush of the +golden air itself, all were lost in the roar of the willing little +engine.</p> + +<p>"Thirty-five, thirty-eight, forty-two—" chanted Archie with a proud eye +on the speedometer. "Go to it, Lizzie! Good old girl!"</p> + +<p>Joan had no fear. Somehow the car seemed safe in his big, powerful +hands—as safe as she was herself. Off came her hat, and the wind did +its pleasure with her hair. Rushing along so close to the ground, dust +in their faces, trees and meadows passing in long green streaks, she got +quite a different sense of motion from any she had known before. It was +a more personal thing, more of an individual effort, as if she and her +companion were really flying like birds, with the little car for wings.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't stop! It's glorious!" she cried as he suddenly slowed down.</p> + +<p>He explained, quietly, that her hair was blowing in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"What a nuisance!" She tucked the offending strand into place.</p> + +<p>"I—didn't mind," said Archibald, in a rather queer voice.</p> + +<p>Joan, with a glance at his face, decided that they would have to be +turning back. But as she bade him good-by she said suddenly, "Teach me +how to run Lizzie myself some day, will you, Archie?"</p> + +<p>"You mean you'll go out with me again?" he demanded, radiant.</p> + +<p>"Of course," promised Joan, reckless with speed and the Spring air. +"Whenever you like!"</p> + +<p>Archibald tooled his Lizzie back to her shed with the air of Phœbus +driving the chariot of the sun. He warbled aloud, he wore his hat on one +ear, he presented a small darky, who helped him to groom and tend +Lizzie, with a silver dollar.</p> + +<p>But that night as he lay in bed, with an April rain making music on the +roof above him, he told himself soberly that he must be careful. There +had been moments to-day, especially with her hair blowing across his +face, when a fellow almost forgot!... He conjured himself by all his +gods to be a wise little ostrich and keep his head well tucked into the +sand.</p> + +<p>And Joan, listening to the same soft rain, so full of suggestion and +race memories and the call of the year, also reminded herself that she +would have to be careful. She thought of his humble, adoring, happy +eyes, and her heart smote her. This one was not quite as other men. To +hurt an Archibald was a trifle beneath one's dignity.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII</h2> + + +<p>The career of Lizzie (whose surname may perhaps be guessed by the +intelligent reader) was short, and her end untimely; but even so she +served her part in the inscrutable purposes of Fate.</p> + +<p>It came about in this wise.</p> + +<p>Archibald had formed quite a habit of calling for his lady, not only on +fine afternoons after five, but sometimes in the balmy spring nights +after dinner, when all the world meandered two by two, occupying the +benches in the little park opposite Joan's house, and filling the roads +with a streaming procession of motors and traps and buggies, of anything +that went on wheels; even perambulators.</p> + +<p>Joan rather enjoyed being part and parcel of this murmuring, meandering +community. She liked to feel in touch with the people about her, like +any Miss Gracie or Miss Ella with a beau—particularly when it cost no +effort. She had but to lend her company, and Archibald would do the +rest. He asked no more from her than her presence.</p> + +<p>Each time he came for her, Lizzie had acquired some new elegance; +dust-covers, a side-mirror, a voice that sounded like a Packard's, at +least. Not a car on the road exhibited brighter brasswork than hers. If +the chariot was not altogether worthy of the lady, it was through no +fault of Archie's. Lizzie, like her owner, strove to please.</p> + +<p>Sometimes, if they started in the afternoon, Effie May would insist upon +providing one of the little picnic lunches that were her +specialty.—"So's you won't have to come home till you get good and +ready," she explained, twinkling at Archie. It was perhaps a little +ungrateful of him not to meet her overtures half way, since it was +evident that she suspected his secret and was deliberately aiding and +abetting him.</p> + +<p>But Archie cared nothing for her aidings and abettings. Hope did not +enter into his calculations at all. He entertained no false illusions. +All he asked was to be allowed as much as possible of Joan's company, +for as long as she was willing to grant it.</p> + +<p>His present streak of luck could not last, he knew. Some fellow would +come along soon with a larger, finer car, or perhaps with a +saddle-horse, or a coach and four—at any rate with something more +suitable than he, Archie, had to offer. But meanwhile there was now; and +if she was never allowed to suspect the inner state of his feelings, the +glorious now might be prolonged indefinitely. Archibald was nothing if +not an opportunist.</p> + +<p>So he was very careful. And Joan was very careful. No more hair blew +into eyes. They remained matter-of-fact and chummy and impersonal, even +when they picknicked together under a twilight sky, one on either side +of a spread napkin, as if they had set up housekeeping together in the +wilderness—a situation which, as people know who are far less wise than +Effie May, is usually provocative of results. Nothing occurred, however: +until the day that marked the passing of Lizzie.</p> + +<p>They were on their way home in the gray of a late evening, Archibald +driving, with half an eye on the whiteness of certain hands as they +deftly stowed away the remains of tea in the picnic-box. Which may have +been the reason that when he came to a railroad crossing, he was less +careful than usual.</p> + +<p>It was a switching track on which a freight train stood, heavily +panting. Lizzie safely negotiated this, and was going on to a second +track beyond, when something jerked Archie's eyes around in time to gaze +full into the headlight of an approaching passenger train. He had not +enough speed on to cross the track ahead of it. He had too much to stop +where he was.</p> + +<p>"Gee!" he grunted; and with a powerful wrench of the wheel, turned into +the track just ahead of the rushing engine.</p> + +<p>Joan meant to scream, but forgot in sheer excitement. Behind sounded a +frantic grinding of brakes, a hiss of steam, and the locomotive let out +shriek after shriek.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I hear you!" muttered Archie. "I'll get out of your way the minute +I can, old top! None too soon to suit yours truly."</p> + +<p>He stared into his side-mirror. Down the ties pounded willing Lizzie at +thirty, forty, fifty—with a pop a tire blew out.</p> + +<p>"Get that door open," he shouted at Joan, above the hissing steam. +"Don't jump till I say the word. Trying to make a flat place. You hear?"</p> + +<p>Joan nodded. There were deep gullies on either side. She glanced over +her shoulder. The engine seemed almost on top of them—But Archie kept +his eye on his mirror.</p> + +<p>"Can't make it," he said suddenly. "All ready? Now! Jump!"</p> + +<p>To the after mortification of her entire life, Joan could not move. She +understood the necessity, her head was quite clear and calm, but her +limbs refused her bidding.</p> + +<p>The next instant he had seized her, tossed her out like a bundle, she +was falling—falling....</p> + +<p>There came a crash, the splintering of glass and iron.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Long after she was able to, Joan dared not open her eyes. She fought +back the coming of consciousness, tried not to think.</p> + +<p>She was on a moving something—a wagon perhaps, or a train. There was +murmuring of voices near her. She strained her ears. The voices were +strange.</p> + +<p>She wanted to pray, but could not remember God's name.</p> + +<p>She was lying on some sort of lounge—a leather lounge. She lifted her +lids very, very slowly. She was in the smoking-compartment of a +train—alone! Where was he? She tried wildly to sit up—to call out—</p> + +<p>And then something moved beside her on the edge of the couch. It was a +head, a bowed, curly head which she recognized and which belonged to a +figure that knelt beside her in an attitude of utter despair.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Archie, Archie!" she whimpered. "Then you <i>aren't</i> killed!"</p> + +<p>The head jerked up. The next instant she was in his arms, her face +against his. She was being kissed and kissed again—eyes, lips, cheeks, +hair—whatever he could reach. She could not stop him. She did not try +to stop him. Indeed there was something consoling, comforting in those +frantic kisses, all wet with tears, and fiercely tender with the passion +of one who has brought his treasure single-handed out of the jaws of +death.</p> + +<p>"My God! My God! My God!" said Archibald; and nothing else.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII</h2> + + +<p>Two days later he came to see her, with a good deal of court-plaster +about his face, and limping on a sprained ankle; and found Joan in bed +with a wrenched shoulder, otherwise unhurt. Effie May convoyed him +amiably upstairs and left him there, to his intense perturbation. He +stood sheepishly beside the door, hardly daring to look at the pale, +laughing face among the pillows—that face with which he had taken such +amazing liberties.</p> + +<p>Joan in a <i>peignoir</i>, with her hair in a great braid on either shoulder, +looked more like the little girl he had first seen weeping alone on the +train, than the composed young lady of ballrooms and horse shows. Yet +his awe of her was not lessened. On the contrary. Once before, when she +lay thus helpless before him, he had forgotten himself. Suppose his +emotions were to form the habit of running away with him? He clenched +his hands hard.</p> + +<p>This timidity on his part did much to restore her own shattered +composure. She had been rather dreading this interview to which she had +steeled herself. Better to get it over and done with, however, since the +thing was inevitable. She could not quite ignore what had passed.</p> + +<p>"You might come closer," she suggested. "I really don't feel strong +enough to-day to converse with you through a megaphone."</p> + +<p>He seated himself gingerly on the edge of the chair she indicated, +looking everywhere but at Joan.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Archie!" she cried, suddenly tremulous, "wasn't it <i>terrible</i>?"</p> + +<p>He started. "Terrible" was not the word in his mind. "Outrageous," +perhaps—but by no means terrible! "W-what?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Why, the accident! Poor, poor Lizzie! Was there anything left of her at +all?"</p> + +<p>He found his voice. "Oh, Lizzie? Well, not much except her license tag."</p> + +<p>"Her poor precious little license tag!... Well, that will be useful +anyway, for the new machine."</p> + +<p>He shook his head. "I guess there isn't going to be any new machine."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" she flushed with quick sympathy. "You mean you—you can't afford +another?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I guess the railroad company'd help to buy me another if I wanted +it—the engineer didn't signal for that crossing. But—I don't. You +see," he murmured, looking down, "there were—well, there were sort of +associations with Lizzie."</p> + +<p>Joan understood. Her flush deepened. "I suppose you feel about her as I +do about Peggy," she said quickly. "My first horse! If anything were to +happen to her, I'd never feel the same about another.—I'm sorry, +Archie! We've had great fun out of the little car."</p> + +<p>He shook his big shoulders as if trying to rid them of some burden. "Oh, +what does the machine matter?" he said roughly. "What gets my goat is +what you must be thinking of me, what your father must be thinking! Of +all the dod-blasted he-idiots! Not to be able to take better care of a +woman than that!"</p> + +<p>"I think, and so does my father, that you took wonderfully good care of +me! If it hadn't been for your nerve, your quickness.... Ugh!" she +shuddered. "Dad says that not one man out of a thousand would have seen +what to do in time to do it. In fact, he's waiting in the library to +make you a speech before you go. Eloquence-with-gestures. Do you know, I +never realized before that in some ways man is really woman's superior? +You've got yourselves better in hand, your muscles do what you tell them +to. It was a good lesson for me." She smiled up at him. His miserable +eyes touched her, and she held out her hand. "Why, Archie! what makes +you look so ashamed?"</p> + +<p>He ignored that friendly hand. "I'm thinking that if your father knew +<i>all</i> I'd done," he muttered, "he'd do something more to me than make a +speech. Eloquence-with-gestures, all right! Gestures of the foot."</p> + +<p>Joan decided to take the bull by the horns. "You mean when I came to, +and you—kissed me? Why did you do that?" she asked, gravely. ("There! +Now the tooth is out," she thought.)</p> + +<p>"Because I was a damn fool," he groaned.</p> + +<p>Joan's lips twitched despite herself. "Really, you're not very +complimentary!"</p> + +<p>But Archibald was beyond considerations of mere politeness. "Because I +hadn't the decent horse-gumption to keep my feelings to myself! Had to +go spilling 'em all over the place, insulting you with 'em!"</p> + +<p>There was a pause. "You care for me, then?" prompted Joan.</p> + +<p>Archie grinned, miserably. "Well, what do you think?"</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid you do."</p> + +<p>"You're dead right," he said.</p> + +<p>Another silence followed this admission, and then he rose to go. "I +guess that'll be about all from me!—Only I want you to know, Miss +Darcy, I—I never meant to do such a thing—I never knew I had it in me! +Good Lord! When I saw you all crumpled up there in that gully, not +moving at all, even when the train-gang came to pick you up—When I knew +that I had done it, I—! And then you opened your eyes and looked at +me.... Oh, hell, what's the use?"</p> + +<p>He turned blindly toward the door.</p> + +<p>She had to catch at his coat-tails to stop him. "Archie! Wait a +minute.—I'm going to make you a speech myself. In the first place, +Archibald Blair, your sort of 'feelings' wouldn't insult anybody. They +couldn't! I'm proud to have you care for me, and I'd be glad, too, if +only I could—But it's not as if you were asking anything in return, is +it?"</p> + +<p>"Me?—<i>asking</i>? Good Lord, I'm not such a mutt as that!"</p> + +<p>"Some day you will be 'asking,' Archie dear—a worthier girl than I am, +I know—and she won't think you a mutt at all!"</p> + +<p>He shook his head. "No, Miss Darcy. You've sort of spoiled ordinary +girls for me."</p> + +<p>She cried honestly, "I hope not! Oh, I do hope not! Because I was going +to beg you to stay friends with me—I need friends. And I <i>can't</i> keep +you if you're going to go on feeling that way!"</p> + +<p>"Sure you can," said Archie, his eyes lighting. "Just try me and see! +I'll make one of the best little old pals you ever saw, if you'll just +forgive the fool way I acted. Now that the steam's sort of blown off, +we—we understand each other."</p> + +<p>"You're certain that we <i>do</i> understand each other?" Her gaze met his +squarely. "You're not going to expect things that can't ever be?"</p> + +<p>"No, ma'am," said Archie.</p> + +<p>Tears suddenly came into her eyes. There was a quality in this faithful, +doglike devotion that made her feel ashamed. It deserved response; it +deserved something better than mere affectionate gratitude. But that was +all she found herself able to give.</p> + +<p>With a demonstrativeness rarer than he guessed, she caught his big hand +in both of hers and held it for a moment to her cheek. When she let it +go there was a tear on the back of it; which Archie, gazing at +wonderingly, suddenly lifted to his lips.</p> + +<p>It was in acts like this, little untaught gestures of pure reverence, +that the boy belied his slang and his big ears and his general +clumsiness, and harked back to the age of chivalry, when a gentleman was +not ashamed to dedicate himself to the service of his lady, and be her +very perfect knight....</p> + +<p>After he had gone, Effie May wandered into Joan's room with a slight air +of expectancy about her which the girl was too preoccupied to notice.</p> + +<p>"You're lookin' sort of white about the gills, dearie," she remarked. +"Does the shoulder pain you?"</p> + +<p>"No. But something else does, and I don't know just what. Oh, Effie May, +what's the matter with me, anyway?" she burst out. "Sometimes I think +I'm not a human person at all, but just a big inflated Ego, floating +around like an observation balloon, taking notes!"</p> + +<p>"Well, well, is that so?" murmured her step-mother, who had her doubts +as to what an Ego might be. "I expect what you need for that floaty +feeling, dearie, is a good dose of calomel—" and she hurried away to +prepare it.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV</h2> + + +<p>There is a certain period of the year when all its widely scattered +children home to Kentucky as surely as bluebirds home to the hollow +stumps in March. It is the season of the May race meet.</p> + +<p>All her life Joan had heard of the Kentucky Derby, and she looked +forward to it with almost as much eagerness as her father. Derby Day +means more to the Kentuckian than the running event that has become +classic. It means the reunion in street and club and hotel-lobby of +neighbors from the various towns of a State where neighborliness is +cultivated to the point of a fine art; of men who have been boys +together; of friends whose ways have drifted far apart (for your +Kentuckian is a great wanderer), and who have years to make up over the +clinking glasses. During the spring race meet, Louisville ceases to be +merely Louisville, and becomes Kentucky, the great old mother-home that +leaves its stamp upon its children even into the third and fourth +generation.</p> + +<p>There is a good deal of sentiment about the Derby, a good deal of +tradition; and there is as well a certain spirit of carefree, sporting, +joyous <i>bonhomie</i> whose like is not to be found perhaps on any other +race-course in the world.</p> + +<p>Joan, who loved crowds, got much pleasure out of the streets at this +time. She took appreciative note of self-conscious belles from up-State, +in picture-hats and peek-a-boo blouses, with a predilection for wearing +long-stemmed roses pinned to their belts. She noted the young farmers +who accompanied them, big-shouldered, square-chinned, clear-eyed, +crimson with the sun—a sturdy, virile type, clumsy in their +country-made clothes, but with well-stuffed wallets bulging their hip +pockets. There is no poverty in the farming regions of Kentucky.</p> + +<p>She learned to recognize the professional racing people, men in +loud-checked clothes talking an incomprehensible jargon; shabby touts +offering confidential tips to anybody who would listen; women wearing +diamonds as large as peas, overdressed, coarse-voiced, not easily +distinguishable from their sisters of the underworld, except that their +men accompanied them openly.</p> + +<p>People of the larger world there were, too. The narrow streets were +congested with great touring-cars bearing unfamiliar license tags; New +York, Michigan, California. Once, hearing crisp Eastern voices at her +elbow, Joan turned just in time to see some people she had met at +Longmeadow disappearing into a hotel. For a moment her heart stood +still. She thought Eduard Desmond was among them. But it proved to be +another man, and Joan mingled hastily in the crowd, relieved that they +had not noticed her.</p> + +<p>In all this preparatory excitement Major Darcy was, as his wife put it, +"busy as a bird dog." There were kinspeople from the Bluegrass to be +welcomed, cousins from Paducah, Maysville, Fayette County. Joan, who did +not altogether share her father's enthusiasm for the ties of kinship, +rather admired her step-mother's skill in side-stepping the Major's +abounding sense of hospitality. Effie May had taken the precaution to +fill her house with paper-hangers.</p> + +<p>"What a shame! You'll have to take your cousins and things to the hotel, +Dickie, or put 'em up at the Country Club, won't you? If I'd only +thought!—" she murmured innocently; but catching Jean's suspicious eye +upon her, she winked.</p> + +<p>Joan returned the wink. She remembered her mother's patience under the +constant influx of Darcy relatives. She had also seen the unfortunate +Misses Darcy almost turned out of doors by the daily increasing numbers +of their kith and kin. The bookcase in their parlor had become, +surprisingly, a bed; and Miss Euphemia, the plump, as the one best +fitted by nature for this ordeal, was spending her nights on a +packing-box sparsely mitigated by pillows.—Not that the Misses Darcy +complained, however. They were long inured to the hospitalities of Derby +week.</p> + +<p>Effie May, indeed, was the only person of Joan's acquaintance who seemed +unaffected by the general excitement over the Derby. She heard with +apparent indifference that the Major had been able to secure a box +directly opposite the judges' stand, and she declined to rise early +enough to accompany him and Joan to Sunday morning breakfast at the +Jockey Club, where enthusiasts met regularly to inspect and pass +critical judgment on the offerings of the past week.</p> + +<p>"Lord, child!" she said once in answer to Joan's surprise at this +indifference. "Horses ain't no treat to me. You see, they used to be my +bread and butter."</p> + +<p>It was one of her few references to a past that rather intrigued her +step-daughter.</p> + +<p>"Were both of your husbands turfmen?" asked the girl, curiously.</p> + +<p>Effie May gave a brief nod; and Joan did not somehow feel encouraged to +further questioning.</p> + +<p>Derby Day dawned bright and sunny.</p> + +<p>"A fast track, Dollykins," cried the Major in great glee. "We ought to +break a record to-day!"</p> + +<p>"That means the Long colt," said Joan learnedly. "The Camden entry's apt +to prove a mud-hen."</p> + +<p>She had in the past week made an exhaustive research into the race-horse +question. Breeding and pedigree, record and past performance, rolled +trippingly from her tongue. Joan was what the theatrical profession call +"quick study."</p> + +<p>The Darcys had been invited to go out to the tracks in the approved +fashion, on top of a tallyho coach, tooled by Johnny Carmichael—who was +not quite as sober as might have been wished. But his four-in-hand +seemed aware of the fact, and took no ungenerous advantage of him.</p> + +<p>Effie May had awakened that morning with a bad headache, and proclaimed +her intention of staying at home.</p> + +<p>"What! Not see the Derby run?" cried her husband incredulously.</p> + +<p>And when with a great shouting and tooting of horns the tallyho drew up +under the porte-cochère, her determination weakened.</p> + +<p>"Oh, do come on, Mrs. Darcy! The air will do you good, and we shan't +have half as much fun without you!" cried several voices, for she was +very popular with young people.</p> + +<p>She hesitated. Joan decided the matter.</p> + +<p>"Put on a heavy veil to shield your eyes from the glare," she suggested; +and Effie May yielded. It was not often that her step-daughter asked for +her society.</p> + +<p>They became part of a procession that had been filing steadily past the +Darcy house since sunrise. Every vehicle in town and the surrounding +country, horse-power or motor-power, was on its way to the races. +Street-cars passed in a solid line, with passengers hanging to the +straps, bulging out of the windows, crowding on to the roofs. There was +a steady throng of foot-passengers, all heading in the same direction, +which hailed the tallyho as it passed with shouts of greeting and good +luck. The tallyho responded with tooting horns and waving parasols.</p> + +<p>It was a friendly, intimate, highly democratic gathering such as may be +found only south of Mason and Dixon's line; never pushing or jostling, +but good-naturedly determined to enjoy itself. At the gate humanity was +packed in a dense, immovable mass as far as the eye could see, and Joan, +descending from her elevation, looked at the crowd in mild alarm. But +the cry arose, "Make way for the ladies!" and instantly a lane appeared +as if by magic, through which she and her companions made royal +progress, laughing at the personalities which greeted them as they +passed.</p> + +<p>"Nobody ever minds what happens on Derby Day!" explained Emily +Carmichael.</p> + +<p>Once in the box, the men of the party deserted in a body for the betting +ring, and Effie May promptly hailed a messenger. Her interest in racing +seemed to have revived.</p> + +<p>"Let's see your tips, girls—anything good?"</p> + +<p>She looked over their various lists in a business-like way, approving +this, discarding that, displaying a knowledge that put Joan's recent +learned discussions to shame.</p> + +<p>"Will-o'-the-Wisp, Satyr out of Firefly. Umm! Ought! to be worth taking +a shot at. Who's up—Casey? No. Won't do! They'll can that crooked +little jock yet—" etc., etc., while her companions eyed her with +respect, and the messenger consulted with her laconically as with an +equal.</p> + +<p>"You want to play 'em straight across the board, dearie;" she admonished +Joan. "That's the only way to win. No piking!"</p> + +<p>But Joan declined to play them straight across the board, or in any way +at all. For one thing she had brought no purse. For another she was far +too busy with the people about her.</p> + +<p>Faces rose behind her in a packed mass to the top of the +grandstand—women's faces for the most part; school-girls, nice old +ladies, mothers of families (who occasionally fed their families under +the casual shelter of a shawl), gum-chewing shop-girls, houris of every +variety, respectable and otherwise, all chatting together with the +utmost simplicity under the spell of a common interest. In the boxes, +and on the clubhouse porch, were girls and women most of whom she knew, +dressed as if for a garden party. Chiffons fluttered in the breeze, +plumes waved, there were bared throats, and lace-covered arms, and +dainty white slippers. Here and there appeared the more conventional +tailored dress, looking almost conspicuous in its severity. For on Derby +Day, Louisville harks back to a custom as old as itself, and frankly +looks its loveliest.</p> + +<p>Just behind Joan in the front row of the grandstand sat a respectable, +gray-headed little old woman with a bonnet tied under her chin, quite +alone, who looked as staid and out of place as Ellen Neal would have +done in these surroundings. But she had a professional-looking pair of +fieldglasses at her eyes, and Joan noticed that her lips were constantly +moving and muttering. The girl turned her back on the Derby to watch +this odd figure.</p> + +<p>At first she thought the old creature was praying; but the syllables +that reached her ears were not prayer.</p> + +<p>"Come on, you Will-o'-the-Wisp! Hop it, baby! 'Ata-boy! Step, darlin', +step lively! Oh, you Will-o'-the-Wisp!"</p> + +<p>Joan saw that she was not merely watching the great race, she was riding +it, with whip, and knee, and voice. And at a certain moment the girl saw +that she had lost it. There was a shrug, a little despairing gesture of +the glasses, and the muttering ceased.</p> + +<p>An explanation suddenly occurred to Joan. She nudged Effie May. "Look at +this funny old soul behind us! She's evidently the mother of the jockey +that's riding Will-o'-the-Wisp," she whispered.</p> + +<p>Effie May glanced briefly over her shoulder, and smiled. "Mother +nothing! That's Texas Nell, who's been following the ponies since the +day of Molly McCarthy. She's lost and won more money, I guess, than any +woman in the business."</p> + +<p>A little later she suggested that they all adjourn to the Club House for +refreshments; but Archie Blair had come with the promise of taking Joan +down to the paddock later, and she decided to stay where she was.</p> + +<p>Archie, who seemed to know everybody, pointed out various celebrities +who were present; fine old General Dutton, down from Lexington with his +flock of famous though still unmarried daughters; Nick Sanders of the +Pisgah neighborhood, who had just escaped conviction for manslaughter +because of the unwritten law; Mrs. Kildare of Storm, a splendid-looking +woman in mannish hat and driving coat, here to see one of her colts go +to the post in the Derby—though of late years Storm was raising mules +instead of race-horses.</p> + +<p>"A shame, too, when it's one of the oldest stud-farms in the State," +commented Archie. "Racing's on its last legs when people like the +Kildares turn to breeding mules!"</p> + +<p>But racing did not appear to be on its last legs that day. The +eagerness, the wild enthusiasm, above all the joyousness of the crowd, +struck an answering chord in Joan. For the first time she really +understood the devotion of Kentuckians to their State and to each other. +It is never their work that endears a people to each other; it is their +play. In a world that takes itself overseriously, Kentucky still knows +how to play.</p> + +<p>She followed Archie presently down toward the paddock where the winner +was to receive his ovation; but as they reached the foot of the +staircase, suddenly there was the sharp explosion of a pistol. Instantly +the crowd surged in the direction of the shot.</p> + +<p>Archie, placing her behind him, forged his way through the struggling +mass to the nearest wall, where he stood her, breathless and disheveled, +but undismayed.</p> + +<p>"Goodness! This is local color with a vengeance! What's happening? Do +you suppose it's your man-eating friend from Pisgah?"</p> + +<p>"Just an old woman shot herself, they say," volunteered a friendly voice +near by, "Cleaned out, I reckon!"</p> + +<p>One of the intuitions to which Joan was liable came to her. Glancing up +at the grandstand, she saw the seat just behind hers was empty.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Archie! It's <i>my</i> little old woman!" she cried pitifully. "Go and +see, will you?—a shabby old thing with a bonnet tied under her chin."</p> + +<p>He hesitated. "I don't like to leave you here alone. Suppose somebody +should speak to you?"</p> + +<p>"Then I shall most certainly speak back!" she said, and he reluctantly +obeyed her wish. Indeed, with Archie, her wishes were apt to assume the +form of commands.</p> + +<p>The gaiety of the scene was gone for Joan. She had got her glimpse of +the grim reality that lies beneath. She was to have another glimpse of +it.</p> + +<p>As she stood there, buffeted by the passing throng, she caught sight +across the wide passageway of her step-mother, in conversation with +somebody who for a moment she did not see. Joan started across to join +her. Effie May's back was toward her, and not until Joan was within +hearing distance did she notice the man to whom her step-mother was +speaking. Then she stopped where she was, startled.</p> + +<p>He was a dissipated-looking creature, hardly better in appearance than a +race-horse tout, flashily dressed, wearing a large diamond in his +tie—altogether one of the least desirable types of those who follow the +races. But he was not only talking with evident familiarity to Mrs. +Darcy, he had taken hold of her arm. It came to Joan in a flash that the +man was doubtless some relative, possibly her brother. What did they +know of Effie May's family?</p> + +<p>Joan stood still and frankly listened.</p> + +<p>"No, no, you don't put that over on me, old girl," this person was +saying in a low but carrying voice. "You're not going to slip away on me +again <i>that</i> easy!"</p> + +<p>Her step-mother's rejoinder did not reach Joan's ears, but she saw her +glance round uneasily. Joan did not blame her for not wishing to be seen +with her present companion. She quietly slipped behind the shelter of a +pillar.</p> + +<p>"Married, eh?" repeated the man's voice. "Come, that's a good one! I'm +from Missouri, I am. You'll be sayin' Calloway married you next. Oho! he +did, eh? A bigger fool than I took him for! If that's the case—" his +voice sharpened—"you must a' come in for a pretty good thing when he +croaked. You'll have to come across, old sport. No going back on a pal!"</p> + +<p>The color suddenly went out of Joan's cheeks. She leaned against her +pillar, feeling rather queer. She wished she were not there—and yet she +listened.</p> + +<p>Effie May's voice reached her, speaking quite steadily, "Not one cent, +Joe! You're no pal of mine. When I left you it was for good and all, and +you know why!"</p> + +<p>"Humm! Well, we'll see what your new husband thinks about it, eh?"</p> + +<p>"No, you don't!" It was a sort of gasp; but instantly the voice steadied +again. "You'll never lay eyes on my husband, Joe. He doesn't live here. +I—I just happened to come over for the races."</p> + +<p>The man grinned. "That's easy enough! I seen you drivin' in with your +swell friends, and sittin' in a box and all. Recognized you right away, +too, for all that thick veil. You ain't the sort a man forgets easy, +Ef," he leered. "Not when he's knowed you like I have! I'll get your +name before you leave this stand, and then—Better come across, kiddo!"</p> + +<p>"I—let me go now, Joe! I'll think it over."</p> + +<p>The man chuckled. "Afraid somebody'll see you talking to me, eh? You can +bet your sweet life you'll think it over, and damn quick, too! See?"</p> + +<p>His grip tightened on her arm. Effie May glanced this way and that, +nervously. Joan stepped out from behind her pillar. After all, the woman +was her father's wife! She must be protected....</p> + +<p>Just then she saw Archie coming, and hurried to him.</p> + +<p>"It was an old lady with a bonnet tied under her chin," he told her +soberly. "She's dead."</p> + +<p>But Joan had no ears for the earlier tragedy.</p> + +<p>"There's a man frightening Mrs. Darcy," she said breathlessly, "he seems +to be somebody she knows. He's—threatening her! Oh, Archie, what shall +we do?"</p> + +<p>The meaning of it, the incredible sordid horror of the thing she had +half learned, began to come home to her. Her father's wife!</p> + +<p>"Threatening!" Archie's jaw set. "Here, that won't do!"</p> + +<p>He strode forward, Joan following. They both heard the man say with +leering distinctness, "It ought to be worth a <i>little</i> cash to a loving +husband to learn the sort of woman he's married up with, Ef, old girl!"</p> + +<p>Then Archie's hand fell on his shoulder.</p> + +<p>Joan never forgot the face her step-mother turned upon them—She made a +desperate attempt to rally.</p> + +<p>"Why—why, dearie! is that you? A—an old friend of mine's been giving +me a tip."</p> + +<p>"Get out," said Archie to the man. "Get out, quick!"</p> + +<p>"Hold on there, kid—So, you been robbing the cradle this time, Ef?" He +grinned at her evilly. "Wait a minute, mister, there's a few things I +might be able to tell you about this party—"</p> + +<p>"Nothing I don't know already," muttered Archie, his grip tightening. +"You've got five minutes to get off the grounds before I tell the +police. Blackmail's a penitentiary offense in this State."</p> + +<p>The man hesitated, looked at Archie's grim jaw, and went....</p> + +<p>Joan and her step-mother gazed at each other. The woman's face had a +curious gray look under its perennial bloom, and she moistened her lips +with a dry tongue.</p> + +<p>"You—you heard?" she said at last.</p> + +<p>Joan nodded. She could not speak.</p> + +<p>It was Archie who remarked quietly: "You'll want to be going home, I +guess. I'll get a taxicab."</p> + +<p>Then sheer pity overcame the horror in the girl's mind. "Yes, Mother. +Come home with me!" she murmured.</p> + +<p>For the first and last time in her life she had called her father's wife +"Mother."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV</h2> + + +<p>"I guess you've got to have the whole story now, though it ain't a very +pretty story to tell a girl," said Effie May wearily. "I don't know as +your papa would much want you to hear it, Joan...."</p> + +<p>To the girl the whole episode seemed unreal, part of that strange day, +with the holiday crowds, the brief, hectic excitement of the races, +followed by the pistol-shot that meant the death of a ruined old woman. +She could not believe that she, Joan Darcy, convent-bred, the daughter +of reserved and fastidious people, could be actually participating in +this impossible melodrama.</p> + +<p>"What my father would wish hardly matters now, I think," she said, more +frigidly than she realized. "Please say what you have to say."</p> + +<p>All the way home her step-mother had wept, steadily and hopelessly, with +ugly snuffling noises that took away what dignity there might have been +in her grief. Joan, always helpless in the face of uncontrolled emotion, +made no effort to comfort her. Her impulse of pity had already died into +disgust. She could not look at that swollen, grayish face, of whose +careful complexion tears made strange havoc.</p> + +<p>The woman sighed. "If only you weren't so young!—I suppose you think +I'm a bad lot—bad as they make 'em. But I'm not. I never was. Oh, I +know I've done things ladies don't do!—but then ladies ain't often +asked to do 'em, dearie. You got to remember that."</p> + +<p>Joan shrugged, and resigned herself to hear what she was to hear.</p> + +<p>"I guess you know I wasn't born a lady, nor raised like one, though I've +tried.... Well, never mind that!—Pa had a little cash-and-carry grocer +store over to Indianapolis, and we lived upstairs, all of us in two +rooms.... It was the dirt I couldn't stand, and the crowding. It ain't +<i>right</i> for a whole lot of children to live like that, all mixed in so! +The others didn't seem to mind, but I was always sort of nice in my +ways. Maybe because I was born before Mom took to the coke."</p> + +<p>"The what?"</p> + +<p>"Coke—dope, you know. It was the only thing that seemed to keep her +going, poor Mom! and I'm glad she had it."</p> + +<p>"Was your mother an invalid?" asked Joan, a little startled by this +breadth of tolerance.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no. But kids come along once a year regular, and she wasn't ever, +so to speak, well. I made up my mind when I wasn't more than ten never +to get myself in the fix Ma was in!... My two older sisters felt that +way, too, I guess. They always had fellows, but not the sort that'd do +to marry. Men like Pa, you know. No 'count—One of the girls worked at a +dressmaker's, and sewed till her eyes were red all the time, and her +shoulders stooped and she coughed. The other—well, the other didn't +keep straight, dearie. Awful few of the girls I knew did keep straight. +But Mame went into one of those houses—you know?—and had a lot of +swell clothes, and jewelry and all. I remember all us younger ones used +to envy her. But she didn't last long at it, and she died—horrible."</p> + +<p>Effie May's eyes were fixed on strange places, and the tragedy of the +world was in them.</p> + +<p>"She used to be a pretty thing, Mame; and sweet, too.... Well, it seemed +to me there ought to be <i>something</i> better for a girl than marrying a +man like Pa and slaving, or getting a good job like Jule's and slaving, +or going wrong like Mame and slaving worst of all! Once when I was out +delivering dresses for the dressmaker where Jule worked, I saw what I +was looking for. Society women. Ladies.</p> + +<p>"That's what I'm going to be," I says to myself, "a Society woman! (I +was about twelve then.) You don't have to work, you live in a fine house +and wear swell clothes, and you can keep as straight as you like.</p> + +<p>"The others used to laugh at me, but Mom never did. She was real +ambitious for her children, Mom was. 'You keep on thinkin' so and you'll +get there,' she used to say. 'You're smart and pretty enough for +anything!' And so I was, then!" Effie May gave a sigh.</p> + +<p>"A fellow come along presently that looked pretty good to me. I met him +over to Casey's dance-hall, I remember, and from the first it was all up +with him. He was better than the fellows I'd been running with; a good +dresser, always flashing his roll—you know race-horse people used to +make good money before the Pari-Mutuels—And when he wanted me to come +over here to Louisville with him—well, it looked to be my +chance—Imagine starting out to be a lady, in company with Joe +Markheim!" said Effie May grimly.</p> + +<p>Joan exclaimed, "Not that dreadful-looking creature you were talking +with to-day?"</p> + +<p>The other nodded. "Only he wasn't dreadful-looking then. He was real +handsome—or he looked that way to me. You see I was only sixteen," she +sighed. "Almost anything in pants that'd take me away from home would +have looked good to me then, I guess!—But I talked to Mom about it, and +she thought I'd better take a chance, too. So I went."</p> + +<p>The girl had begun to shiver a little. "You mean—you married him?"</p> + +<p>Effie May gave her a queer look. "Well, yes. As near as I could. You see +he had a wife at the time."</p> + +<p>"He—betrayed you, then?" gasped Joan.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, dearie, I knew. So did Ma. But we thought I'd better take a +chance.... You see, things like that depend on how you're raised. To us +it was almost the same as being married. Not like poor Mame, you know. +There's a whole lot of difference between a kept woman, and <i>her</i> sort."</p> + +<p>"Is there?" said Joan with stiff lips.</p> + +<p>"My, yes! Sometimes if the man sees you're straight, he marries you +after a while.... But Joe didn't. I'm sure I don't know why I stuck to +him as long as I did, except, that I'm sort of an affectionate +disposition and don't like to change," she ruminated. "And then he began +to play in pretty bad luck, too, and that's not the time to leave a man, +when he's down and out. I guess I'd have been sticking yet, if he'd +acted decent—I ain't going to tell you what he asked me to do once when +he got on his uppers," she said, darkly flushing, "but it was something +no gentleman would have proposed to a woman who'd stuck to him through +thick and thin for years! That's when I left him for Calloway."</p> + +<p>"Did—did Mr. Calloway marry you?" asked Joan faintly.</p> + +<p>"Sure he did! Just before he died. He got religion, and the priest told +him he ought, so as he could leave me his money without any fuss. He was +a good old sport, that priest! And so was Calloway. Never turned a hair. +'Wish I'd done it before!' says he—Don't you think that's a pretty good +recommendation for a woman, when a man's willing to marry her after +living with her for fifteen years?" she asked wistfully.</p> + +<p>"I suppose so," murmured Joan—The usual thing was happening to her. Old +standards receded. Inevitably, irresistibly, she was beginning to see +things through the other's eyes. This was Joan's great weakness—though +there were people who considered it her strength.</p> + +<p>"Calloway was pretty near to being a gentleman—not a born one, like +your papa, dearie, but real genteel in his instincts, and he did a whole +lot to make a lady of me. He always insisted on us having the best of +everything, company especially. When he knew he had to die, poor +boy!"—her lips trembled—"he says to me, says he, 'Here's your chance, +old girl! Take the money, and go somewhere and make a fresh start,' he +says. 'You'll do! You're good as any of 'em.' His very words, dearie! +'You're good as any of 'em.'"—She wiped her eyes.</p> + +<p>"And so you came here?" prompted the girl.</p> + +<p>"Yes. I'd always liked the place. It seemed sort of friendly and +homelike, and it's small enough so that your money counts for something. +It wouldn't be lost, I thought, like in New York or Chicago—But I was +kind of lonesome at first—always been used to having a man around—and +I didn't know anybody. And then your mama died, and I saw my way clear. +You didn't know I knew your mama, did you, dearie?"</p> + +<p>Joan was rather startled. She had not realized quite how early her life +and her father's had been swept into the stream of this woman's +ambition.</p> + +<p>"Well, I did. Not to speak to, of course. But I used to watch her out of +my back windows, and think what a lady she was to be so poor, and wished +I knew how to scrape acquaintance with her. And once she caught me +watching her, and smiled up, just as sweet, as if she'd known me always +and liked me. (Sort of the way <i>you</i> smile, dearie, when you're real +pleased.)—And when she died the idea came to me, all of a sudden, that +I was the person to look after them she'd left."</p> + +<p>Suddenly she buried her face in her hands and began to weep again. "Oh, +Gawd! Think of where I'd got to, and look where I'm at now!"</p> + +<p>Joan moved restlessly about the room, conscious of the ache of tears in +her own throat. She pictured that child of the streets and dancehalls, +poor little "Lightfoot Ef," as they called her, struggling to better her +condition, sturdily trying to find some tenable place of her own in +life, even as she, Joan, was trying—but under what hopeless handicaps! +She thought of the cocaine-drugged mother with ambitions; of the evil, +treacherous creature with whom the child had chosen to "take a chance"; +and it began to seem almost a miracle that Effie May should be what she +was. Joan looked at her with something like respect.</p> + +<p>"But I heard you tell my father you had buried two husbands!" she said +sharply. "If you really felt that you were 'good as any of them,' +that—that you had practically been married—why didn't you make a clean +breast of it all?"</p> + +<p>"Because I'm no fool!" gulped Effie May. "There are some things a man +won't stand for—though God knows why <i>they</i> should be so all-fired +particular! And it seemed the only chance I'd ever get to marry a real +gentleman. Besides, there was you."</p> + +<p>"Me?"</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, dearie. I'd never had any children, and I always thought if I +could have I'd like 'em all to be girls, that I could dress up, and do +for, and bring up nice.... Oh, Gawd, Gawd!" she moaned, suddenly +flinging herself across the bed, face down. "Here I am in a grand house, +with a limousine, and servants of my own, and a husband like a king, and +a young lady daughter in society, and me giving parties to the pick of +the land!... And now to go down again, back to the gutter!" She beat the +bed with her fists.</p> + +<p>There was something appalling in the utter abandonment of this woman +whom Joan had never before seen otherwise than cheerful and poised.</p> + +<p>"If I'd never gone to the races! Oh, Gawd! If I'd never gone! I had a +hunch. I knew I'd meet up with that skunk Joe again somewheres, and I'd +ought to have kept out of his way! There isn't a soul in this town could +'a' told on me unless it was that boy Blair."</p> + +<p>"Archie?" repeated Joan, surprised.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she sobbed. "He spotted me the first time he saw me—I don't know +how. But I could 'a' kept <i>his</i> mouth shut all right!—I was fixing him +so he'd never tell...."</p> + +<p>In her abandonment Effie May might have said rather more than she meant +to say, if at that moment a great honking of horns and shouting of gay +farewells had not announced the return of the tallyho from the Derby.</p> + +<p>She sat erect with a gasp. "It's <i>him</i>! For goodness' sake don't let +your papa catch me like this!" She flew to her dressing-table, reaching +for cold cream, powder, rouge. "Keep him off," she besought the girl. +"Quick!—pull down those shades—there, that's better. Help me into a +negligée—no, no, not that green one, for heaven's sake!—a pink one. +Now some perfume. Tell him he must be very quiet because of my +headache—don't forget, that's why we came home. There!—how do I look?"</p> + +<p>She leaned back languidly in a chaise-longue, with a handkerchief dipped +in cologne hiding her swollen eyes.</p> + +<p>Joan, rather dazed, had assisted at these hasty rites, marveling at the +triviality of a mind which could turn in one second from the catastrophe +of a wrecked life to considerations of vanity. And then the sheer +desperation of the thing struck her. Effie May was not done yet. She +meant to go down fighting.</p> + +<p>There was something in the girl that always responded to gallant effort.</p> + +<p>"Good luck," she said queerly, and went to the door.</p> + +<p>"Wait!" gasped the woman. "Joan! <i>Are you going to tell him right +away?</i>"</p> + +<p>"Not—right away," said the girl slowly.</p> + +<p>There came a little rush behind her. Effie May had caught up one of her +hands, and kissed it....</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI</h2> + + +<p>The girl had a difficult problem before her. She wrestled with it +throughout a sleepless night. She felt like Fate, with human destinies +in her control.</p> + +<p>At one moment her course seemed clear beyond the question of a doubt. It +was unthinkable that her father should continue to recognize as his +wife—her mother's successor!—a woman who had led an immoral life, who +had earned the very money that supported them by living for years as the +mistress of another man. Joan's cheeks burned with the thought.</p> + +<p>At the next moment, she wondered what her father would do without the +woman. She had no illusions left regarding Richard Darcy. He had never +in his futile life stood on his own two feet. He was one of the +inefficients, who must be cared for. Now, weakened morally and +physically by the habit of luxurious living, he was less able than ever +to take care of himself. Age was coming upon him rapidly. In the +struggle of life, he must go down utterly to defeat—Unless his daughter +could help him; and so far his daughter had been unable even to help +herself.</p> + +<p>The girl wondered, too, her heart sick within her, whether he would +consent to give up the luxury he loved when he learned the shame that +went with it.... Not that he would be able to forgive the woman! She +knew his fixed standards, his pride of race, too well to expect of him +any such magnanimity. The vulgarity of Effie May had been quite enough +for him to swallow, as it was.</p> + +<p>Joan thought that if, knowing his wife's past and utterly despising her, +he yet kept her because of material benefits, it would be a shame she +personally could not bear. Better, perhaps, that he be not put to the +test.</p> + +<p>And yet—in her mother's place, a woman of the town! (The girl was not +able to make the fine distinctions in vice suggested by her +step-mother.)</p> + +<p>There had to be considered, also, the fraudulency of continuing to +inflict such a woman on society in the guise of a lady.</p> + +<p>The word brought back a rush of pity to Joan's heart. Effie May had done +her best to be a "lady," poor creature, even to the extent of vainly +trying to remodel her speech and her manners on those of her new +family....</p> + +<p>Joan, very white and drawn about the lips, ordered her horse in the +early morning and went for a long gallop, hoping to clear her brain. +When she returned, with nothing decided, she found Archie Blair in the +library waiting for her.</p> + +<p>She had never before been so glad to see him. It came upon her, with a +rush of relief, that here was somebody with whom she could discuss her +problem, whose advice she could ask. Archie knew! He was not very +clever, perhaps, never subtle nor quick in his mental processes; but +there was something sure about him, something utterly honest and +dependable.</p> + +<p>Evidently he had given others the same impression.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Darcy sent for me to come out and talk things over," he said +gravely. "She wanted me to speak to you. She thought maybe I could make +you understand better."</p> + +<p>"Sent for <i>you</i>? Why, but you've never been one of her friends. You've +never even pretended to be!"</p> + +<p>"No," he said simply. "She isn't my sort, and she don't belong here. +She's too flossy. But since she's here, I'm sorry for her—Now that you +know, what are you going to do about it, Miss Darcy?"</p> + +<p>Joan laid her problem before him with a frankness she would not have +believed possible. She told him about her father. Never before, not even +to Stefan Nikolai, had she disclosed Richard Darcy quite as she had come +to know him latterly. It was an analysis that would have looked too +brutal set down in black and white.</p> + +<p>Archie listened thoughtfully, and with no appearance of embarrassment or +consciousness that the conversation was unusual. There was something in +his masculinity that never suggested sex.</p> + +<p>"I get you," he said at last. "You can't make up your mind whether to +upset the apple-cart and ease your conscience, or keep your mouth shut +and let everybody live happily ever after."</p> + +<p>Joan looked at him quickly. She had not expected quite such a lucid +summing up of the situation from Archie. But he seemed unconscious of +epigram.</p> + +<p>"Did I ever tell you," he asked irrelevantly, "about an old gentleman +that took our room after—well, after my mother went away—and let me go +on living with him because he said I was too small to make any +difference? A queer old bird he was, drinking himself to death as fast +as he could, but mighty good to me. It was him—he, I mean—who taught +me to read, and started me going to night school, and got me my first +job. When he was about half-lit he used to talk to me as if I was just +his age, about all sorts of things, life and books and folks—and one of +the things he used to say kind of stuck in my head. 'When in doubt, +Archibald' (he was the only person I ever knew who called me all of +it!), 'when in doubt, always be a little kinder than necessary....' +Pretty good dope, I think."</p> + +<p>There was a long silence.</p> + +<p>Then Joan said slowly: "Thank you, Archie! Yes, it is pretty good dope. +And your old drunkard must have been a good deal of a man. You must tell +me more about him some day."</p> + +<p>She gave her shoulders a little shake of relief.</p> + +<p>"Very well!—I won't upset the apple-cart. I didn't much want to, +anyway!"</p> + +<p>Archie smiled at her widely. It was a smile that said, "I knew it!" and +"Good girl!" and a number of other things that made Joan blush. She had +come by insensible degrees to value rather highly the good opinion of +her protégé.</p> + +<p>"But there's one thing sure," he said, sobering. "You'll be wanting to +get out of the apple-cart yourself!"</p> + +<p>That, too, Joan had faced in her long night's vigil. The question of her +future was no longer hovering in space. It was here, immediate, urgent. +She would have liked if possible not to spend another hour under the +roof that had been supplied by the late Mr. Calloway.</p> + +<p>They discussed the matter of her living in every aspect.</p> + +<p>"You mean you haven't got a red cent to your name, Miss Darcy? Gee!" +muttered Archie. "What was the old chap thinking of? Oil stocks! Might +as well have put the money on the races." Even in his loyal mind the +Major had undergone something of an eclipse.</p> + +<p>"Better, because then we could have seen it run," sighed Joan. "However, +it's gone, and now I've got to get busy!" (Archibald's language was +rather contagious.)</p> + +<p>She told him of her two alternatives. The stage he absolutely vetoed.</p> + +<p>"It's no place for a lady," he said stubbornly, and would listen to no +argument. Joan suddenly remembered that his mother had been an actress. +She did not pursue the question.</p> + +<p>"Newspaper work might do," he admitted. "A society reporter with the +pull you've got ought to be worth some money."</p> + +<p>"A society reporter!—You mean I'd have to go to my friends' houses and +publish what happens there? Oh, Archie, I'm afraid I couldn't do that."</p> + +<p>"Why not?" he said innocently. "They like it."</p> + +<p>But Joan persisted. "I'm willing to report <i>anything</i> except society."</p> + +<p>"Murders? Police courts?" he suggested grimly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, if I must."</p> + +<p>"Well, I guess not!" said Archie.</p> + +<p>She laughed a little helplessly. "But, Archie, you veto everything I +suggest! Really, you're not very helpful. Don't you understand that I've +<i>got</i> to earn my living, right at once? I'm unskilled labor. Beggars +can't be choosers. You'd suppose nothing was good enough for me!"</p> + +<p>"And it isn't!... Gosh!" he said miserably—(she saw that his big hands +were shaking)—"The idea makes me right down sick! A little delicate +thing like you, out in the scramble with the rest of us—! I know what +it is, you see. Bad enough for a fellow, sometimes. I know the things a +working girl has to do and stand for. Honest to God, I'd rather see you +married!" he groaned.</p> + +<p>Unselfish devotion could go no farther, and Joan knew it.</p> + +<p>She suddenly found herself on the verge of tears. She was tired out, +mind, soul, and body. She would have liked to put her head down on his +shoulder and simply cry till she was comforted. It was such a big, broad +shoulder, so amply adapted to the bearing of burdens. She could make him +happy, too, poor boy! One and all, people seemed to expect nothing of +her but marriage—her father, Effie May, Stefan Nikolai, and now Archie. +Perhaps they knew best. They were many and she only one. Temptation +beset her—or was it inspiration? She did not know....</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Archie was elaborating his forlorn idea. "Isn't there +<i>somebody</i> who would do?" he urged. "Surely of all the fellows who've +been hanging round, there ought to be one decent chap who'd give his +head and ears to keep you out of this—to take you away from here +himself?"</p> + +<p>Joan made her decision.</p> + +<p>"I think there is," she said tremulously. "Only—he won't say so."</p> + +<p>"The big mutt!" cried Archie—and then paused. Her expression, the +significance of her voice, began to penetrate his humility.</p> + +<p>"You—<i>you're not joshing me</i>?" he gasped.</p> + +<p>Joan put out quick hands as though to ward him off, suddenly afraid of +the glow she had kindled in his face.</p> + +<p>"Wait, Archie! I don't love you—you know that. Not as you love me, I +mean. I don't believe I ever will love anybody that way. I—perhaps I'm +not fine enough—But I do like you and trust you more than anybody else +in the world. And so—if that's enough—If you want me—"</p> + +<p>"<i>Do I want you?</i>" Archie gripped the edge of his chair to keep himself +anchored to <i>terra firma</i>. "Say, Miss Darcy, I—I—"</p> + +<p>"Don't you think," she suggested with a quivering smile, "that as we are +about to become engaged, you might begin to call me 'Joan'?"</p> + +<p>At that, with a great cry of "JOAN!" he gave up hold on the chair and +<i>terra firma</i> together.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The sound of the overturned chair brought Effie May on a reconnoitering +expedition to the upper landing of the stairs, which commanded an +unsuspected view of the library. What she saw caused her to tiptoe away, +smiling to herself a little sadly.</p> + +<p>"<i>His</i> mouth's stopped all right—" she thought (with perfect +truth)—"now that it doesn't matter!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII</h2> + + +<p>There were those, notably among the Jabberwocks, who felt that in +availing herself of the age-old solution of handing her burdens over to +a man to bear, Joan had rather hauled down her colors. Perhaps she felt +so herself, after the first glow of relief was over.</p> + +<p>But if she needed solace, she got it in the radiant, incredulous, +blissful attitude of Archibald. He could not believe the marvelous thing +that had happened to him. A dozen times a day he was obliged to glance +at the ring he had given her (a solitaire inevitably, small but of good +water) to make sure that he was not dreaming.</p> + +<p>He began at once, following the example of the birds about him, to +prepare for the coming event; "twigging" as Joan called it to herself, +amusedly. He was as mysterious about it, and quite as obvious, as any +robin darting about with a straw in its beak. He called her to the +telephone frequently to ask such questions as how many drawers a +"chiffoneer" ought to have; and when she asked him why he wanted to +know, the reply was a joyous, "Never you mind!"</p> + +<p>He listened with the stealth of a Sherlock Holmes for any expressions of +preference on her part, putting them secretly down in a note-book; and +Joan grew afraid to mention any object, no matter how unlikely, for fear +it would become part of the procession of packages which Ellen reported +as filing daily past her door to the room upstairs.</p> + +<p>"A rocking-chair come this morning," Ellen would report. "Golden oak, +all carved! Yesterday it was one them new-fangled electric-lamps with +brass chain hanging down like fringe. Real tasty. The day before it was +a statute."</p> + +<p>"Heavens, Nellen—Not a statue!"</p> + +<p>"Sure! A nigger woman brandishin' a spear. I poked a hole in the +wrappin's to get a good look at it."</p> + +<p>(Joan had once unguardedly envied the Carmichaels their rare old +bronzes.)</p> + +<p>She was touched but alarmed, and decided that she would better hasten +the wedding if only to put a stop to this indiscriminate twigging.</p> + +<p>Others were almost as pleased with the engagement as Archibald; her +father, for one, who had not expected quite so early a release from +parental responsibility. Joan, while a creditable child, had proven a +rather difficult one, especially since his marriage.</p> + +<p>"Not that it is quite such an—er—ambitious arrangement as I could have +wished, Dollykins,"—(a ducal alliance would have been more in accord +with Darcy inclinations). "But young Blair is an excellent fellow, an +excellent fellow. And after all, in this world virtue is the thing that +counts!" He appeared to indicate that in the next world things might be +arranged more satisfactorily.</p> + +<p>Ellen was as proud of this unexpected <i>dénouement</i> as if it were an egg +of her own hatching.</p> + +<p>"I didn't believe you had the gumption!" she said unflatteringly. "I +thought you was too highminded to know a real man when you seen +him.—And now, praise the day! you'll be needin' your mamma's furniture +back again."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but, Nellen darling, what will you do without it?"</p> + +<p>"Me?" The old woman's face fell. "Why, I kind o' thought you'd be takin' +me along with the furniture. Unless I'm too stiff and plain to be makin' +you a fancy servant like you're used to nowadays!"—she tossed her head +angrily.</p> + +<p>Joan hugged her. "I'd rather have you than all the fancy servants in the +world, and you know it. But I thought you preferred being an independent +modiste in lodgings. And then—you see, dear, I'm not quite sure whether +Archie can afford a servant."</p> + +<p>She had not so far been able to bring him down from the clouds long +enough to discuss ways and means.</p> + +<p>"Sho! He can afford <i>me</i> all right. I'll save him money—And you don't +suppose he's going to let you spoil them white hands of yourn with +housework and cookin'? Not if I know Mr. Archie!..."</p> + +<p>The Misses Darcy were almost tearful with gratification, and received +Archie with the sort of romantic respect younger girls accord to heroes +of the matinée.</p> + +<p>"What did I prophesy?" cried Miss Virginia. "Only one season out, and +already—! Such a beautiful name too,—'Mrs. Archibald Blair.' Not a +Kentucky or Virginia one, of course. However, there <i>are</i> other States, +Maryland, or South Carolina, or even Massachusetts. Where did you say +he was from, precious girl?"</p> + +<p>"Louisville."</p> + +<p>The sisters exchanged startled glances. "Louisville? But that's +impossible. We do not know his people!"</p> + +<p>"He hasn't any people."</p> + +<p>It was Miss Euphemia who recovered herself first. "So much the better," +she murmured. "I mean—Not that one would wish them to have died, of +course! But really, you know, in-laws—"</p> + +<p>"And so often I think a self-made man—" Miss Iphigenia took up the +parable. "So many of our Southern families seem to run largely to girls +nowadays. What I mean is, a little good red blood—"</p> + +<p>"Sister!" murmured two shocked voices. Everybody blushed.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid Archie isn't even a self-made man, yet," smiled Joan, +mentally struggling to fill in the gaps. "I shall have to help make +him."</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes! A woman's touch, as dear papa used to say—"</p> + +<p>Joan reflected that the late Mr. Darcy must have known a good deal about +the power of a woman's touch....</p> + +<p>Her friend Emily's congratulations were something on the same order, +though more frankly expressed. There was a wholesome attitude of +frankness always between the two girls.</p> + +<p>"I think it's dear of you, Joan," she exclaimed, "and so brave!"</p> + +<p>"Just why 'brave'?"</p> + +<p>Emily answered, despite embarrassment, "Why, to marry a man without +antecedents, without position, and without money, seems to me very +brave. I know I should never have the courage to do it, even if I cared +for him. In fact, I should be mighty careful not to care for him!—But +then I've never had your spirit of independence."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps because you've more to lose," said Joan quietly. "If either of +us is brave, I think it's poor Archie."</p> + +<p>She often thought of her lover so; tenderly, even lovingly, but as "Poor +Archie!..."</p> + +<p>Effie May was the only one of Joan's immediate environment who seemed to +look with any doubts upon a situation she herself had largely brought to +pass.</p> + +<p>"Look here, girlie," she said once abruptly. "You don't love that boy. +At least you ain't in love with him—and there's a difference. Why do +you do it, anyhow?"</p> + +<p>Joan, taken by surprise, was not immediately ready with her reply.</p> + +<p>"Is it because you want to get away from me?" asked the other.</p> + +<p>Still Joan was not ready to answer, and Effie May sighed. "You needn't +have gone so far as that," she said, "I'd have fixed it for you +somehow—I'm not going to forget what you've done for me, Joan. Not +telling, treating me just as if—it was all right. You're a bigger woman +than you know you are," she added, gravely. "I'll make it up to you some +day, see if I don't."</p> + +<p>Joan gave her a quick, straight look. "If you mean money, Effie May, and +I think you do, we'd better come to an understanding at once. I'm +keeping my counsel about—about your affairs; I'm helping you commit a +fraud, you know—entirely on my father's account. For myself—that's +another matter. I appreciate your kindness, I know you have meant to do +your best, but—"</p> + +<p>"But you're done with me?" finished the other.</p> + +<p>"Yes. I shall only see so much of you hereafter as is necessary to keep +Father from suspecting anything. As for your money,"—the girl's voice +shook—"neither I nor my husband will ever touch a cent of it under any +circumstances. Do you understand? We do not forget how it was—earned."</p> + +<p>The other sighed again. "Well, dearie, don't forget that it <i>was</i> +earned, good and plenty!—And I've done you one good turn already," she +remarked <i>sotto voce</i>, as the girl turned away to greet her fiancé.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII</h2> + + +<p>Joan and Archibald were married two weeks later, very quietly, before +only her family, resisting all the Major's importunities to make an +occasion of it. Nor would the girl accept a trousseau.</p> + +<p>"If I need any more clothes than I've got already, Archie will buy them +for me. Won't you, old boy?" she said, slipping her hand into his.</p> + +<p>Archie, with the happy consciousness of a rapidly growing business and +several years' savings in a Building Association replied proudly that he +would.</p> + +<p>One comment she had missed on her engagement; Stefan Nikolai's. She had +written to him at once (her first letter since his post-card advising a +preliminary course in matrimony), saying in effect, "Now I hope you're +satisfied!" But as no reply came, she reached the correct conclusion +that he was on the wing again, with her letter following him from +address to address, unread.</p> + +<p>Ten minutes after the little ceremony that left her no longer Joan +Darcy, a cablegram was brought to her from London.</p> + +<p>"Wait. Coming. Nikolai."</p> + +<p>To which she replied with reckless extravagance:</p> + +<p>"Too late. Sorry. Come anyway...."</p> + +<p>Alone at last with her husband in a carriage (to which the negro +yard-boy, feeling with the Major that something was lacking to the +occasion, had generously attached one of his own shoes), Joan asked +rather listlessly where he meant to take her. She had a conviction that +it would be to Atlantic City, or to Niagara Falls.</p> + +<p>For Archie was everything that was most correct in the way of +bridegrooms. His bulldog toes, his padded blue serge, his near-Panama +hat, his very socks, were so palpably bought for the occasion that Joan +felt that to match him she ought to be wearing dove-gray and a shrinking +manner.</p> + +<p>But she did not feel particularly shrinking; merely relieved that the +die was cast, and tired enough to be glad of the arm that stole +tentatively around her.</p> + +<p>"What train are we catching, dear?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"No train at all.—Oh, Joan," he said tremulously, "I hope you won't +mind! It's just for to-night—just a foolish idea of mine."</p> + +<p>"What is?"</p> + +<p>"Wait and see!"</p> + +<p>She waited rather apprehensively. She was a little nervous about +surprises, since her father's recent effort in that line.</p> + +<p>But the carriage was traversing a street she knew well, and it presently +stopped in front of the house where Ellen lived. There was still a tinge +of afterglow reflected in its many-paned windows, and among the young +feathery leafage of the old sycamore sparrows were preparing to go to +bed. Two or three of the denizens of the lower floors were taking a +breath of air on the doorstep. They stared at the carriage with +interest.</p> + +<p>"None of 'em know about us yet," reassured Archie in a whisper. "Just +bluff it out." Aloud he said to one of them (it was the lady who +expertly curled feathers): "Do you know whether Mrs. Neal is in, Mrs. +Higgs? We've come to see her."</p> + +<p>"I don't know as she is, Mr. Archie," replied the other, her eyes taking +avid note of Joan's smart tailor-made dress and traveling hat. "But I +know she's expectin' company all right, 'cause I been smellin' comp'ny +cookin' all day! Go right up and make yourselves to hum," she urged, +with the never-failing hospitality of her class.</p> + +<p>Archibald led his wife up the dim, curved stairway that had doubtless +known the reluctant feet of many another bride before her, and opened +Ellen's door with a key.</p> + +<p>"Yon <i>are</i> honored," murmured Joan. "I didn't dream that Ellen had got +to the point of trusting gentlemen with her latch-key!"</p> + +<p>"Look!" said Archie proudly.</p> + +<p>The room was gay with flowers, truly a bridal bower; and in its center +stood the old round walnut table she had known all her life, much +battered by the kicking of her own youthful toes, set for two, and laden +with delicacies. There was a small but magnificent wedding-cake, there +was chicken-salad, crisp pink tongue, pickles, chocolates of Joan's +favorite brand, and resting in a pail of ice-water, its neck swathed in +a napkin, a bottle of champagne.</p> + +<p>"Cinnamon-rolls keeping hot in the warmer, butter in the ice-box +right-hand side, and I'm only to light the jet under the coffee-pot, and +leave it to bubble ten minutes—" murmured Archie, as one reciting a +well-conned lesson.</p> + +<p>Joan's listlessness suddenly disappeared. She hugged him.</p> + +<p>"What a perfectly <i>beautiful</i> wedding-supper!" she cried. "Was it your +idea, or Ellen's?"</p> + +<p>"A sort of combination, I guess. She thought you might feel more +homelike here with your mother's things, and I—well, it's my home too, +you see!—So you don't mind?"</p> + +<p>"Mind!" she winked hard to keep the tears back. "Archie, let's have +pancakes, too!" she cried.</p> + +<p>They had pancakes. They also had eggs, in the scrambling of which +Archibald was quite expert. Afterwards they washed the pans and dishes +together, with two of Ellen's aprons tied around their necks, amid much +merriment.</p> + +<p>"I had no idea married life was so pleasant!" she sighed. "Archie, let's +always do our work like this, together!"</p> + +<p>"Work?" he picked up one of her hands and examined it reverently. Joan +had rather beautiful hands, sensitive and lithe, delicately white, with +rosy palms and finger-tips. "I'll let you play at work now and then," he +said soberly. "But work is for us men, my Joan, not for our women!"</p> + +<p>"It's fortunate the cooks and housemaids of the land don't agree with +you," she teased; "or perhaps they do, and hence the servant problem!"</p> + +<p>Later, they locked Ellen's door and put the key under the mat, and went +up a flight higher. Joan entered Archie's room with some curiosity. To +her, people's environment spoke a clear language; and sometimes she +realized, with a little shock, that she knew nothing at all of the man +she had married.</p> + +<p>It was a long, low attic chamber, whose ceiling sloped cosily down over +casement windows with wide sills. There was a fine fireplace, marred, +however, by a small stove showing evidences of occasional culinary +efforts.</p> + +<p>The results of Archie's twigging were very apparent; notably the +golden-oak rocking-chair, the "chiffoneer" surmounted by the bronze lady +with a spear. But she was more interested in the things which had +belonged to him.</p> + +<p>As Ellen had told her, the place was littered with books, shelves, +tables, and even window-sills. Joan examined these eagerly. There was a +very shabby Shakespeare in a good edition, an old pocket Emerson, a new +Rubaiyat, a brand-new "Alice in Wonderland" (which made her smile); but +it was no scholar's library. Archie's tastes were not what he would have +called "high-brow." The works of Marie Corelli and Conan Doyle +predominated, with several school geographies and histories, and various +treatises on the psychology of salesmanship. She found something rather +touching in this collection of books, remembering that he had referred +to it as his college career.</p> + +<p>She looked next for his pictures, those other sure indications of the +inner man. But there were none, except the small photograph of herself +in its elaborate frame, with a little vase attached holding fresh +flowers.</p> + +<p>"Archie!" she protested, laughing, "I look like a Madonna in a shrine!"</p> + +<p>"One of those namby-pamby parties with a dinner-plate behind her head? +Never saw one of them that could touch you!" he pronounced candidly.</p> + +<p>"I fear your correspondence-course has been neglecting Art," she +murmured. "There was a fellow named Botticelli who did some very neat +little things in that line. But come now, surely you've got some other +pictures hidden away somewhere? No naughty ballet-girls kicking up their +limb-legs? No bareback ladies? Or Parisiennes exhibiting wicked garters? +Honest Injun?"</p> + +<p>He grinned sheepishly. "I did have," he admitted. "But I sort of lost my +taste for 'em when you gave me that picture of you."</p> + +<p>She kissed him.</p> + +<p>"That's a prettier compliment than the little vase of flowers before my +picture, dear!..."</p> + +<p>Archie had been standing at the door, watching her progress around his +room with eyes that were almost incredulous. His room!—and she in +it!... He felt that if he opened a window she might flutter out again, +back into the world from which she came. Once, when he was very small, +he had found a belated autumn butterfly in the street, and brought it +home, and put it on a geranium-plant he had in the window, hoping it +might like to spend the winter there. But in the morning it lay dead +against the pane. Archie remembered that butterfly now, and shivered. +She saw him.</p> + +<p>She ensconced herself in the largest and shabbiest of his three chairs +and patted the arm of it invitingly. "Come over here, and let's really +talk!" she commanded.</p> + +<p>He obeyed. "What shall we talk about?"</p> + +<p>"Tell me about your mother," said Joan.</p> + +<p>He told her what he could remember. It was not much except a voice—a +soft English voice; and the feeling of arms that held him close; and +quite clearly the sound of sobbing beside his pillow whenever he woke +suddenly at night.</p> + +<p>"Nothing was ever heard from her after she left you here?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes. Money came once or twice to the landlady for my board—this +was a boarding-house, then. But after a few months it stopped coming."</p> + +<p>"And haven't you <i>any</i> idea what became of her?"</p> + +<p>"She died, of course," said Archie simply. "Or she'd have come back for +me. There were people who thought—" he swallowed hard—"that she left +me here on purpose, and never meant to come back. That isn't so. I don't +know much about her, but I do know that she loved her child. You, can't +fool a kid about that!... And there were people who thought she killed +herself. But I don't somehow believe she was a quitter. What do <i>you</i> +think?"</p> + +<p>He had taken a photograph out of his pocket, and handed it to Joan, who +studied it closely. Despite the unbecoming "fringe" and jersey of an +earlier day, it was a lovely face she saw, without a hint of folly or +weakness or worse. The chin was firm as Archie's, the features strong as +they were delicate. The face was still rounded and soft with youth, yet +out of it looked a pair of haunted eyes.</p> + +<p>"No, your mother was no coward," she said with conviction. "But she was +a very unhappy woman. And Archie—she was a lady!" The look of race +seemed to her unmistakable.</p> + +<p>He drew a great breath. "I think so, too," he said gladly, "I've always +thought so. That's how I dared—" Suddenly, passionately, he drew her up +into his arms. "Oh, my Joan, do you see why I wanted you here in my own +home? It's all the home I've ever had. Anything that's happened to me +has happened here. I've lain here at night trying to be a man when I was +nothing more than a kid. I've sat here listening, listening—Oh, for +years I used to think I heard my mother coming up the stairs to get me, +long after I was old enough to know she never would! And sometimes I +thought—Do you believe in ghosts?"</p> + +<p>"Yes!" said Joan. "Ghosts of people that love us and want to help—"</p> + +<p>"That's what I mean! And that's why I wanted to stay on in this room, +where—she could find me. It's a horrible thing not to belong anywhere, +nor to any one, like any little fyst dog in the streets. I've never said +this before—"</p> + +<p>"I know!" whispered Joan.</p> + +<p>"And now that I do belong to some one, I wanted my room to know it. I +wanted—in case there <i>were</i> any ghosts—"</p> + +<p>"I know," whispered Joan again, her lips against his.</p> + +<p>There was a taste of salt on them, and she held him close and closer, +this great, lonely child who should never be lonely again. If, as she +had warned him, she was not capable of offering deep love, Joan could at +least offer deep understanding, which perhaps is rarer....</p> + +<p>And presently as she held him so in the quiet of his old room, with the +house settling into drowsiness about them, and the sycamore tapping its +friendly signal on the roof close above their heads, Joan's identity +seemed to be slipping, merging, into that of some one else. She ceased +to be Joan the girl. She felt, in that strange moment of transition, +partly the wife, and partly the mother; but most of all the woman, whose +mission is to give.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX</h2> + + +<p>There is, among the wives and mothers of what the</p> + +<p>Misses Darcy were wont to call the polite world, a general conspiracy of +silence on the subject of honeymoons. The theory is allowed to go +unchallenged that a honeymoon is invariably a period of bliss and +romance unalloyed; the conspirators apparently subscribing to the ideas +of the stoical parent who teaches his child to swim by throwing him +unexpectedly into the water. If he manages to keep afloat, well and +good; if he drowns, regrettable; if he comes out alive but with a +shrinking cowardice with regard to water that never afterwards leaves +him, perhaps it is no concern of his parent's. And again, perhaps it is.</p> + +<p>Joan and Archibald Blair returned from their honeymoon not quite as +close friends as when they embarked upon it. Joan's manner had gained a +certain kindliness, a gentle consideration that was akin to sympathy; +whereas Archie, with puzzled eyes and a smile that beamed rather +uncertainly, almost evinced his desire to propitiate by rolling over at +her feet and holding up four paws to heaven. (Which was no way to +propitiate our heroine.)</p> + +<p>Honeymoons, however, do not last indefinitely; and by the time Ellen +Neal and her furniture and the results of Archie's "twigging" were moved +into a certain modest house that simply cried aloud to be purchased (on +the installment plan), Archie had grown almost accustomed to the sight +of the One and Only seated at his breakfast table <i>en negligée</i>, pouring +out his coffee, with a preoccupied word from him now and then as she +glanced through the morning paper. (It was characteristic of that +household that Joan was the one who read the morning paper.) He kissed +her whenever he liked without asking leave; and in return she rumpled up +his hair deliciously, and called him "Goose!", and reminded him to bring +oranges from downtown because the neighboring grocery had such poor +ones.</p> + +<p>Joan entered upon the domestic rôle with her usual thoroughness.</p> + +<p>At first she had been rather afraid of the expenditure the purchase of a +house involved. It sounded to her too much like the large and not very +practical ideas of her father. But when Archie pointed out to her that +even day laborers managed to own their cottages, thanks to +building-associations, and that purchase on this plan was merely a way +of saving money, she yielded without undue reluctance. After all, there +was not only his salary to be relied upon, but his commissions, +dependent upon his own energy, which seemed boundless. Like many poor +girls, she was quite ignorant of the value of money. Beyond the +purchasing power of a concrete sum, say one thousand dollars, money +meant nothing to her at all. Ten thousand dollars, twenty thousand +dollars—they seemed very much the same.</p> + +<p>The house was its own best advocate; one of the charming English cottage +types that are beginning to make home life not only comfortable but +dignified for the small householder in our American cities. The +neighborhood was excellent, one of the pretty green courts she had long +ago coveted; and there was a small garden artfully arranged into vistas +and quite an air of privacy by means of shrubbery, and overlooked by a +secluded porch whose coolness seemed like paradise to Archie, hurrying +to it out of the hot city.</p> + +<p>The garden was his part of the establishment; and there he might be +observed any morning shortly after sunrise, digging, pruning, whistling +tunelessly between his teeth, with one eye on a window whence would +presently issue the drowsy voice of Joan, calling, "Good-morning out +there, Adam!" Then with a rush Adam would disappear from his garden, +leaving spade or hose where he happened to drop them, lest Eve need +assistance with buttoning a blouse or tying a shoe.</p> + +<p>It was a glorious time for Archie. He was almost painfully happy.</p> + +<p>The Jabberwocks and others took a good deal of critical interest in +Joan's house. She had always been suspected of being a little odd, and +her house proved it indubitably. At a period when Louisville was +graduating out of the green-wall-and-mission-furniture period, through +Coloniality, into a more catholic appreciation of possessions which +express the personality of the possessor, Joan's house was still rather +a shock to all preconceived notions of decoration. There was none of the +white woodwork and panelled severity which sounded the correct and most +recent note. Joan's woodwork and walls were alike a soft, practical +gray—"Soot-color," she explained placidly—and the plaster had been +left rough-cast. Against it, instead of the accepted pictures of the +day, hung two or three rare prints, a cast of the Parthenon frieze, and +a fine strip of Persian embroidery. On the floor were black skin rugs. A +green vine, growing out of an ancient yellowed marble jar, wandered at +will across one wall and up the brick of the chimney-place.</p> + +<p>"You got that idea in Italy," commented one visitor.</p> + +<p>But the undoubted charm of Joan's house was that she had taken no ideas +from anywhere. She simply had about her the sort of things she liked. +There were ferns growing in the window-sills, and no curtains whatever +except two lengths of heavy pumpkin-colored silk which might be drawn +across the panes at will, but rarely were.</p> + +<p>"People will be able to see in when the lamps are lighted," protested +her step-mother.</p> + +<p>"What of it? They won't see much over those ferns," said Joan, "and I +always love to peep in at lighted windows myself, don't you? Haven't you +ever noticed how much nicer the houses in this part of the world look +when they're undressed for the summer? Personally, my taste has never +run to lingerie in household decoration."</p> + +<p>Effie May, who was nothing if not receptive, went home and meekly took +down her point-lace curtains.</p> + +<p>What troubled Louisville most about the Blair house was its lack of a +dining-room. There was no chamber held sacred to the rites of +nourishment, with chairs sitting primly against the wall and a center +table with a centerpiece upon it, bearing a fernery or—what was more +recently affected by the really up-to-date—a dish containing imitation +fruit. ("So much smarter than the real kind," explained her neighbor, +Mrs. Webster, who had quite a taste for the correct in art.) There was +no sideboard for the display of wedding-silver, no china-cabinet +containing the best glassware in glittering serried rows. What was the +use of having nice things, thought many a troubled housewife, if they +were to blush unseen in pantries?</p> + +<p>But Joan did not understand, and frankly said so, why in a small house +one room should be set aside for use only three times a day. She needed +the extra wall space for her books. Besides if there was a dining-room +people seemed to feel obliged always to eat in it, instead of in the +garden or the porch, or on a table drawn close to the window, where one +might look out into the world while one ate, as in a pleasant +restaurant.</p> + +<p>"I'm like the Irishman," she remarked, "who said that he was glad he +didn't like strawberries, because if he did he'd have to eat them, and +he hated the damn things.—Try having your meals served about in +different places, and see if you haven't a better appetite for them!"</p> + +<p>Even the admiring Jabberwocks felt that this was carrying oddity to the +extreme. They always took strangers, however, to see Joan's little +house, and incidentally Joan herself. Mr. Nikolai had sent her recently +several Mandarin costumes, unique in the history of Louisville for +domestic wear, in which she appeared comfortable, piquante, and quite +exotically feminine.</p> + +<p>"Fancy! Trousers on a bride! And at such a time, too," murmured the +ladies of the neighborhood among themselves.</p> + +<p>But as Effie May pointed out to the Major, himself a trifle shocked by +this eccentricity of costume in a lady of his family, "She's slim enough +to wear 'em, Dickie, and those full silk pants are certainly becoming to +the feet. Wish I had some myself—Don't you worry," she added, chuckling +over the Major's expression, "I haven't! Pantaloons weren't meant for +the pincushion style of figger."</p> + +<p>Archibald, of course, found the Mandarin costume adorable. He would have +found any costume of Joan's adorable, even a Mother Hubbard, or its +lineal descendant, the bungalow-apron.</p> + +<p>Altogether, Joan had a rather happy aftermath to her honeymoon. "The +pasture-time," she called it, during which she was as placid and content +as a cow in a clover-field. For the first and possibly the last time in +her life she was quite free from worry. That was one of the things +Archie took completely out of her hands. He would have liked to take +everything out of her hands that might be irksome to her—her thinking, +her very sleeping and eating, had it been possible. But worry at least +was something he could take upon his own broad shoulders.</p> + +<p>Her personal allowance and the allowance he made her for household +expenses were paid regularly into her account—an arrangement Joan had +insisted upon, despite his protest.</p> + +<p>"Why should you be bothered with the paying of bills, darlingest?"</p> + +<p>"But I <i>love</i> to pay bills, Archie," she had replied, rather piteously +to one who had known anything of the earlier Darcy <i>ménage</i>. "It's a +real pleasure to get them all out of the way before the tenth of the +month!" And it was a pleasure she attended to religiously, even after +she began to grow a little lax and indifferent about other household +matters. There were to be no "Indians" in the annals of the Blair +family.</p> + +<p>Joan had never been so sluggish mentally as in these first months of +married life; yet she felt almost abnormally normal, close to the great +heart of existence, at one with the physical world about her, content +with the content of a cog which fits well into the wheel where it +belongs.</p> + +<p>Long afterwards some would-be cynic asked her whether she believed that +marriage <i>per se</i> was an experiment which paid.</p> + +<p>"Yes!" she answered without hesitation. "If only for the moment when you +tell your husband that he is to have a child."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XL" id="CHAPTER_XL"></a>CHAPTER XL</h2> + + +<p>Her father took a satisfaction in Joan's house and husband and general +condition of modest prosperity which surprised and rather touched the +girl. It was as if he found in her well-being a justification of +something that needed justifying. "I may have my weaknesses," his manner +seemed to say, "but observe how well I have provided for my child!"</p> + +<p>He dropped in almost daily for his afternoon julep on the shaded porch +that overlooked her garden. Effie May had the tact rarely to accompany +him, and Joan found herself seeing more of her father than she ever had +under his own roof.</p> + +<p>"I don't know just what it is, my dear," he once said, musingly. +"Possibly the familiar furniture, or the presence of Ellen Neal (quite a +fair cook, Dollykins, though her manner leaves something to be desired). +But somehow in this little establishment of yours I always feel as +if—well, as if Mary were about somewhere." He sighed sentimentally. "I +feel as if she might at any moment sit down beside us and take out a bit +of sewing. She was rarely without sewing, you remember?"</p> + +<p>"I remember." Joan patted his hand, a demonstration rare with her. "I am +glad you feel that way, Father. Mother always does seem very close to +me—especially just now." An odd feeling of sorriness for her +step-mother came over Joan. "You are sure," she asked on an impulse, +"that Effie May does not object to your coming here so much without +her?"</p> + +<p>"Object? To my visiting my daughter under her own vine and figtree? It +would hardly be within her province to object," he commented regally. +"But, as it happens, she is the one who frequently suggests my visits. +She quite understands that under the—er, the happy circumstances—you +cannot come much to us, not caring naturally to appear any more often +than is necessary in public." The Major adhered rigorously to every +tenet of the old school.</p> + +<p>He had recently presented his daughter with a low, comfortable phaeton +of the sort which, as he explained, the gentlewomen of his day were +accustomed to drive; and Pegasus was learning to adapt herself demurely +to the rôle of a family horse. Joan found this phaeton a great +convenience for shopping and marketing and her rare visiting (she saw +very little of her friends that summer); and in the evening she and +Archie went for long drives about the parks, covering less ground than +they had covered in the ill-fated Lizzie, but making up for this by a +more intimate knowledge of what they passed.</p> + +<p>"It's good to go slowly enough now and then to see the wayside flowers, +and smell the fern, and hear the bird-calls, isn't it?" she said once as +they jogged along.</p> + +<p>"Sure it is! Now and then," replied Archie guardedly. A rising young +business man of the present time could hardly be expected to find +phaetoning an exhilarating means of locomotion. But "anything goes just +now," as he said to himself, happily.</p> + +<p>He was not able to take as many of these drives with her as he should +have liked. The cares of business were beginning to sit upon him with +increasing heaviness. "A man's business has got to grow with his +family," he was fond of saying, importantly; and Joan was left alone +sometimes, even on Saturday afternoons and after supper in the +evenings—those periods sacred in these our States to the uses of +domesticity.</p> + +<p>But she did not complain. She was even, secretly, a little glad, for she +had always enjoyed being alone. There were so many books to be read, +letters to be written, thoughts to be thought in which Archie, for all +his loyal efforts, could not quite share; and there was her music. One +of her step-mother's several wedding presents had been a small grand +piano, as companionable to Joan in this "pasture-time" as a dog is to +some women.</p> + +<p>Archibald, too, loved music. He frequently urged her to play and sing, +and was as proud of her rather indifferent performances as a <i>maestro</i> +of a star-pupil. But he had an innocent, disconcerting habit of patting +time with his foot, or bursting into the air at unexpected moments in a +large, booming tenor that never by any accident quite found the key. +Music was one of the things Joan found herself unable to share with her +husband.</p> + +<p>She objected sometimes to his growing preoccupation with business, on +his own account. He began to look a little thin and fine-drawn; the +typical American husband, she told him reprovingly.</p> + +<p>"You're neglecting your exercise, Archie dear! You never go to the Y. M. +C. A., or play around with the boys any more."</p> + +<p>"Got something better to do," he beamed at her.</p> + +<p>"Goose! But it isn't good for a man never to have any fun at all. 'All +work and no play'—"</p> + +<p>He took her in his arms. "Fun! What do I want with fun?" he exclaimed +quite fiercely, lifting her face to his. But before their lips met, he +let her go.</p> + +<p>"No rough stuff," she heard him admonish himself under his breath.</p> + +<p>He kissed her hand instead....</p> + +<p>The Darcys too, were spending rather a quiet summer. Now that they had +no débutante daughter in prospect, their names figured leas prominently +in the social column. With his growing avoirdupois, the Major appeared +to be abandoning the one-step in favor of the easy-chair, which was to +be found in greater perfection at home than at the Country Club. If his +bride regretted this lapse into settledness, she showed no signs of it. +Her avoirdupois, also, was getting rather out of hand, despite constant +attention to massage and sporadic attempts at dieting.</p> + +<p>"It ain't how <i>much</i> I eat, seems like—it's <i>what</i> I eat," she said +once plaintively to Joan. "Everything tasty turns to flesh on me; and +God knows, I hate a poor table!"</p> + +<p>But Joan realized that it was not entirely physical inhibitions which +were retiring the Darcys from the social arena. Her step-mother had +delicacy enough to understand that her place was not among Joan's +acquaintance, now that the girl had discovered her history. Joan liked +her the better for it. She was punctiliously careful to invite Effie May +to her house at frequent intervals, and always accepted such invitations +as the other offered in return. The Major, never observant, was quite +unaware that the relations between his wife and daughter had suffered +any change. As he once remarked impersonally, "You and my wife would +naturally find very little in common, excellent creature though she is. +Why should you, indeed? Your antecedents, your early environment, have +been entirely different. And as one grows older, those are the things +that really matter," he added, with a complacency that sat rather oddly +upon him in the circumstances—On the whole, Joan began to feel +distinctly sorry for her step-mother.</p> + +<p>The older people came sometimes to take her for long automobile drives +into the State; expeditions which Joan enjoyed thoroughly. Her father's +imperturbable good manners and Effie May's amiability made them +excellent traveling-companions, proof against all hazards of the road; +tire trouble, bad going, even delayed and poor meals. And they both +treated Joan with a new consideration, oddly wistful on the woman's +part, to which she responded gratefully.</p> + +<p>It shamed her somehow to see how kind the world was to her nowadays; as +if, in following the line of least resistance, she had done something +very commendable indeed.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLI" id="CHAPTER_XLI"></a>CHAPTER XLI</h2> + + +<p>These long automobile rides familiarized her as nothing else could not +only with the State but with her father. She came to understand and +share his peculiar, proprietary interest in the lovely Kentucky +countryside. He pointed out to her its beauties of wood and hill and +pasture like the owner of some vast estate exhibiting it to visitors, +with a frank and pardonable pride. It is a habit of mind not unusual to +the native of certain localities—notably Virginia and Maryland and +Kentucky; but in her wandering, unimportant old father it seemed to Joan +a little piteous, as if he had sunk his small identity into that of his +great State, content to make its history his history, its glory his.</p> + +<p>"Here," he would say reverently, "is the spot where we made our final +victorious stand against the Indians. Sacred ground, my daughter!" +Or—"This is the place where our women went down to the spring for +water, risking their lives, bless their hearts! because the men could +not be spared from the defense of the stockade. You should thank God +that you are a Kentucky woman!" He sometimes forgot in his enthusiasm +that she had not been, so to speak, born to the purple—though that +fact, as he once explained to her, was merely an accident, due to a +certain miscalculation of dates.</p> + +<p>Joan came to realize in this new intimacy with her father that his +futility was owing in large part to circumstances over which he had no +control: notably the times in which he lived. He had been born a little +too late or perhaps a little too early. There is no need for men of his +type in the piping times of peace; but had his prime chanced to occur +during some convulsed period of the world's history, it is conceivable +that Richard Darcy might have rendered a great account of himself. He +was a born leader of men, with unfortunately little opportunity to +exercise his talent. During the only war that came within his range of +vision (our late unpleasantness with Spain), he had chanced to be +involved with certain trusting friends in a financial situation so acute +that the affairs of the nation had been obliged to stand aside until he +extricated himself; by which time, to his lasting regret, the war was +over.</p> + +<p>He had, of course, no right to his title. It had simply accrued to him +as titles often do accrue to men of his type, particularly in the South; +partly by inheritance, growing as he grew, beginning with a modest +lieutenancy in the State Guards, which had been his one and only taste +of the career for which he had been created. He never spoke of himself +as "Major"; but from the habit of years he had perhaps come to think of +himself so, accepting the unsought honor gracefully as he accepted +whatever else came his way, whether of good or evil.</p> + +<p>It is a pity that he could not have fallen asleep, say, at twenty, in +his clean, brave youth; and awakened in the month of August 1914, ready +for the day's work....</p> + +<p>The Darcys and Joan were running home after a long trip in the Bluegrass +one evening, slipping along without lights in the glow of an October +aftermath, when at the turn of an unfrequented lane they came suddenly +upon a crowd of people collected about a bridge. The chauffeur brought +the car to an abrupt stop. It was at once surrounded by several men with +handkerchiefs tied over the lower parts of their faces.</p> + +<p>"What the devil—" cried Major Darcy.</p> + +<p>"Highwaymen!" gasped Joan.</p> + +<p>A man with a pistol in his hand said laconically, "No, we ain't +highwaymen, lady. We wasn't expectin' comp'ny, but sence you've come, +you'll hev to stay. Set right where you are and don't look. We'll be +through this job in a minute."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense! Let us pass at once," said the Major indignantly. "Drive on +over the bridge, James!"</p> + +<p>"Better not, James," drawled the laconic one. "We're usin' that bridge +ourselves just now."</p> + +<p>The chauffeur hesitated, walling his eyes in fright. Joan, who was +seated beside him, reached for the ignition switch to start the engine, +but turned on instead the lighting-switch. The sudden glare of the +headlights revealed some twenty or thirty roughly dressed men of the +farmer class, and in their midst, bound hand and foot with rope, a +cowering negro.</p> + +<p>"My God! It's a lynching," quavered Effie May.</p> + +<p>The Major had by this time collected his startled wits.</p> + +<p>With a sudden oath he jerked open the door and got out.</p> + +<p>"What are you up to here, men? Don't touch me, sir!"—this to one who +had laid a hand on his sleeve.</p> + +<p>There was a quality in her father's voice that sent a thrill through +Joan. She had never heard it before. The man removed his hand.</p> + +<p>"We're just stringin' up a nigger for the best of reasons," he +explained. "'Tain't no business of yourn, stranger."</p> + +<p>"I'll make it my business," said Richard Darcy sternly. "You're not +going to disgrace this State while <i>I</i> am here!"</p> + +<p>The effect was histrionic; and yet Joan realized that her father was not +blustering. He meant it.</p> + +<p>There came a wail from beyond that made her shiver, the cry of a man in +mortal terror. "I ain't never done it, 'fore Gawd I ain't never tetched +that woman. Oh, Boss! O-o-oh, Boss!" It was like the cry of a damned +soul to God. "<i>Don'</i> you let 'em git me!"</p> + +<p>There was an agony of hope in the appeal, as of one who sees at hand +unexpected deliverance.</p> + +<p>The Major responded to it, speaking in quiet reassurance as she had +sometimes heard him speak, years ago, when she had wakened out of some +nightmare in the little bed beside her parents'.</p> + +<p>"All right, boy. They shan't get you,"</p> + +<p>He strode through the crowd, putting men out of his way right and left. +In sheer surprise they let him pass till he reached the negro, who +cringed to him, catching at his hand.</p> + +<p>Then a voice cried out, "Here, we're wastin' time. Muzzle the old boy!"</p> + +<p>The Major turned and stared magnificently in the direction of his voice, +nettled by the term "old boy."</p> + +<p>"Evidently," he remarked, "the gentleman does not know who I am!"</p> + +<p>Joan was seized with an hysterical desire to laugh. At such a moment the +bombast of it was too much. Suppose they should inquire +minstrel-fashion, "Well, then, Mr. Johnsing, who <i>are</i> you?"</p> + +<p>But the crowd was not as used to her father as she was. They hesitated, +impressed by his hauteur, his fine clothes, the waiting limousine. They +stirred uneasily. A voice near her murmured, "Mebbe it's the Governor!"</p> + +<p>Richard Darcy took instant advantage of the impression he had created, +and began to speak. It was not the first time she had heard him make a +speech, for he was frequently called upon to aid some friend in turning +the tide of political battle. The Major, indeed, had rather a reputation +for assisting his friends into office—It was typical of Joan that she +listened critically despite her thumping heart; that she watched what +she could see of the faces about her, picked out by the lights of the +car; that she missed no expression on the gray, working features of the +negro, darting wild glances about him like a newly caged wolf she had +seen once at the Zoo, frantically eying the people who stood to stare at +it.</p> + +<p>Her father's voice poured out in a golden flood, running the gamut from +anger to gentle suasion. It was the voice of the natural orator, which +depends very little for its effect upon words. Once, passing a negro +church, Joan had heard just such a voice rising and falling within, and +though not a word of the sermon reached her, after a few moments she had +been almost ready to sway and moan with the congregation as it muttered, +"Yas, good Lawd!" "Be mussiful to us po' sinners" "Come, Jesus, come +down and take me home!"</p> + +<p>Some such effect began to be visible on the Major's audience. There were +stirrings and murmurings that suggested applause. He rose to them. The +eloquence that lies so close under the skin of Southern-born +men—certainly of all Southern-born men of Irish stock—came to the +surface and flowered. He showed this handful of rough farmers what it +should mean to them to be natives of so great and glorious a +commonwealth ("'Commonwealth'—what a splendid word, my friends!"); +wearing in her bosom all the riches of the earth, nourishing at that +bosom a race of supermen ("And superwomen, my friends! superwomen!"); +carrying in her womb the greatness of the country's future.</p> + +<p>"Statesmen we give to the world—law-makers, not lawbreakers! Soldiers +we give, not midnight marauders and assassins!" (If he borrowed freely +from a certain greater Kentucky orator who speaks only with his pen, the +Major was unaware of plagiarism.) "Show me the fools who say Kentuckians +are lawless? We make our laws as we need them, gentlemen—and we obey +them! Perhaps the greatest of our laws is this: 'Never kick a dog when +it is down.'" His voice sank to a warm and personal friendliness. "I ask +you, gentlemen—is there any dog more down than the negro? It is not his +fault that he is here where he is no longer wanted. It is not his fault +that he brought with him when he came the ways and the intelligence of +the jungle. It is ours, perhaps, that he has kept them. We shall never +tame the negro by proving ourselves savages!—My friends, you and I here +in Kentucky pride ourselves on breaking our horses and our dogs by means +of kindness. Shall we do less for our unfortunate black brother?"</p> + +<p>A voice in the crowd remarked, "<i>You</i> can claim kin with him ef you want +to, Jedge—<i>I</i> ain't!"</p> + +<p>A ripple of laughter greeted this sally, and Joan's tension relaxed. She +felt intuitively that a crowd which laughs does not kill.</p> + +<p>While he spoke, her father had more than once caught her eye over the +heads of the others, urgently, meaningly. Now he nodded to her. Joan +suddenly caught the message he was trying to convey.</p> + +<p>"He wants us to go to him. Quick, James! Start your engine. Quietly!"</p> + +<p>In his nervousness, however, the chauffeur started the car with a jerk, +and many faces moved in their direction. The Major turned on the full +tide of his voice, and rose to his climax.</p> + +<p>"My friends," he asked solemnly, "have you thought to take into your +hands the privilege of the Most High, who saith, 'Vengeance is mine'? +Perhaps you have called vengeance 'justice'? Even so there is a finer +thing than justice. There is mercy. And there is something we may give +even greater than mercy—something to which each of us poor souls has a +human right. I refer, gentlemen, to the benefit of the doubt.</p> + +<p>"Some day every one of us here present—who knows how soon?—must stand +before the Judgment Seat, cowering as this wretch is cowering now. And +what we dare to ask then will be perhaps not justice, nor even +mercy—but simply the benefit of the doubt."</p> + +<p>Tears came into Joan's eyes. It seemed to her that for a moment her +father had forgotten his purpose there, and was speaking not for another +but for himself....</p> + +<p>His mind, however, had not left the business in hand. After a slight and +telling pause, he said in his ordinary conversational voice, "Now I am +going to take this negro with me, gentlemen, if you don't mind. I have +at hand a safe conveyance, as you see. I pledge you my word to deliver +him in person to the sheriff of this county."</p> + +<p>He beckoned to Joan.</p> + +<p>The spell was broken, and pandemonium reigned. "Look out—he's makin' a +get-away!"</p> + +<p>"Aw, what's the use? Leave him go!"</p> + +<p>"By God, it was <i>my sister</i>—"</p> + +<p>"Let me at him"—</p> + +<p>"The gen'leman's right, I tell you!"—</p> + +<p>And penetrating all a laconic drawl, "Stranger, leggo that nigger, and +leggo quick."</p> + +<p>Joan, on tiptoe, saw her father's head and beckoning hand above the +crowd.</p> + +<p>"Go on, James!" she said tensely. "Never mind if you run them down—"</p> + +<p>"Stop!" gasped Effie May. "Don't you see those pistols? They mean to +shoot!"</p> + +<p>The terrified James did not know which to obey.</p> + +<p>"Here, give me the wheel," ordered Joan. "Be quiet, Effie May!" Into her +mind came scornfully one of her father's sayings, "The canaille are +invariably timid."</p> + +<p>Effie May suddenly screamed again. "They're going to <i>shoot</i>!"</p> + +<p>And as if at a signal for which they had been waiting, two shots barked +out.</p> + +<p>The Major, still finely erect, thrust the negro behind him, and at the +same moment Joan sprang out of the car to go to his defense; two +instinctive acts which proved them father and child, and also proved +indubitably the Darcy right to pride of race.</p> + +<p>His steady voice reached her again as she struggled through the milling +crowd; "You poor fools, look to what your folly has already led you! +You've shot the wrong man. You've shot <i>me</i>!"</p> + +<p>There was a second of appalled silence. Then a man muttered "Golly!" and +turned and fled. His panic was contagious. One after another, by twos +and threes, the lynchers melted hastily away. When Joan reached her +father he was seated on the ground, leaning for support against the +bridge railing, alone except for the shackled negro.</p> + +<p>He still had command of the situation. "Take my penknife, Dollykins, and +set this boy free so that he can run," he ordered.</p> + +<p>Joan cut the ropes, sick with relief. He was so calm that she thought he +must have been bluffing the crowd.</p> + +<p>"Dad! Dad! You're not really hurt, then?"</p> + +<p>He smiled up at her. "Not hurt, my child. Killed," he said, dramatic to +the last....</p> + +<p>The negro did not run. In return for his defender's heroism, he +performed a small act of heroism himself—not so small either, perhaps, +considering that his life depended upon what use he made of the next few +hours.</p> + +<p>"I'll tote him to de car, lady," he offered, pantingly; and delayed +further to give the paralyzed chauffeur instructions as to where to find +the nearest doctor.</p> + +<p>Joan sat on the floor of the limousine with her father's head in her +lap, only half aware of his labored, fluttering breath, of the blood +upon her dress, of her step-mother's wild pleadings with him just to +look at her, just to say one word to his Effie May, who loved him—</p> + +<p>She was strangely exalted. Her mind seemed to have slipped into a region +of consciousness where things were made suddenly clear to her, troubling +questions answered, doubts set forever aside.</p> + +<p>"A gentleman," she kept repeating to herself. "A gentleman!"</p> + +<p>It seemed to her in that moment a great thing to have been born a +gentleman, even if one became nothing more; to know that whatever the +fortunes of life, one would be able to meet them gallantly and unafraid, +because of a something within stronger than personal will or habit: the +sum of the wills and habits of many ancestors. She was sorry for the +<i>canaille</i>, the Effie Mays, who had no such inner power to rely upon....</p> + +<p>As they carried him into a doctor's office, Richard Darcy's eyes opened. +They passed the face of his frantic wife unseeing, and came to rest upon +Joan in some anxiety.</p> + +<p>"You all right, Dollykins? Must not allow—mere trifle like +this—upset—"</p> + +<p>"Nothing shall upset me, Father," she said, smiling at him.</p> + +<p>"Children so necessary—family traditions—"</p> + +<p>She bent close to him. "My son is going to be proud to carry on the +family traditions, dear."</p> + +<p>His face cleared. "Good girl!" There was a little bubbling breath. "I +promised Mary—"</p> + +<p>But Joan never learned what promise it was that he had made, and +doubtless broken, to his Mary.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLII" id="CHAPTER_XLII"></a>CHAPTER XLII</h2> + + +<p>Joan herself, like other self-reliant people, sometimes made promises +which she was unable to keep. She had made such a one to her father. +Despite her best efforts, the fact and manner of his death did manage to +upset her, disastrously.</p> + +<p>The day came not long afterwards when for hours, years, they seemed to +her, Joan was aware of nothing but pain, and of the fact that miserable, +terrified Archie must somehow be got out of the way before she lost +control of herself. She thought that when she could get enough breath to +do it, she would ask him to go down town and bring her some ice-cream or +something; but when she did open her lips they emitted, entirely without +permission, a queer sound that was somewhere between a yelp and a croak.</p> + +<p>"Goodness! This is no way for a gentleman to behave," she said to +herself oddly; and must have spoken aloud, for the voice of Ellen Neal +responded.</p> + +<p>"There, there, my lamb! Yell all you want. You ain't no gentleman, thank +goodness! but just a poor little girl who's got a right to holler all +she likes. That's <i>one</i> right the men-folks ain't going to deny us and +get away with it—not them!"</p> + +<p>Ellen as she spoke glared truculently at the doctor. It was not the +first accouchement at which she had assisted, and at such moments she +became feministic almost to the point of violence. Even Archie found it +safer to remain out of reach of her accusing eye.</p> + +<p>But long, very long afterwards, Ellen herself admitted him once more to +the Presence, for the sake of the burden he carried—a subdued, queerly +gentle Ellen, with all the acerbity gone from voice and manner, and in +its place something rather beautiful. It was motherhood that glowed in +her, had any one cared to notice; motherhood come by vicariously, as +Ellen Neal came by all the loveliness in life.</p> + +<p>"See, my lamb," she murmured, bending over the bed. "Open them pretty +eyes and look who's here! Come close, Mr. Archie, and show her the +present you've brought her. Quiet, now!—she ain't up to much. It's a +surprise, Joie. Open your eyes and look!"</p> + +<p>It was a surprise, indeed. Joan, by great effort, managed to focus her +gaze on Archie's burden. She shut her eyes quickly, and opened them +again. They were still there; not one, but two little wrinkled, fuzzy +heads.</p> + +<p>"Can you beat it?" demanded Archie, shakily, "Some little present, eh?" +He held them out to her.</p> + +<p>Joan's lips moved, twitching. "From a Friend," was what she said; and +Archie, recognizing a jest on sight, let out such a roar of joy that the +twins awoke with pin-prick wails, and a nurse came running, and he was +thrust once more into outer darkness.</p> + +<p>There a message was brought to him. "Your wife says why don't you +telegraph President Roosevelt about it?"</p> + +<p>And literal Archie did so....</p> + +<p>But this was the last laughter heard in the house of Blair for many a +weary week. Twins require more strength for their bearing and rearing +than Joan, taken so unawares, was able to provide. The Major's final act +of gallantry cost a good deal in the way of human life, which may, or +may not, have been of more value than the life he saved.</p> + +<p>Afterwards, when she was able to think again, Joan sometimes wondered +whether his death was not perhaps an even more futile thing than his +life had been; yet she would not have had it otherwise.</p> + +<p>His widow had caused to be erected to his memory the finest granite +monolith obtainable for money, bearing the inscription, "Greater love +hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends"; +and Joan, after her first startled distaste for the grandiloquence +passed, was able to appreciate how deeply the memorial must gratify the +proud spirit of a Darcy, if it lingered near enough to know.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIII" id="CHAPTER_XLIII"></a>CHAPTER XLIII</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Through the dim corridors, the silent halls<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of Yesterday, the nuns move, whispering<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their rosary. Without, a robin calls<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A drowsy blessing to his little mate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For it is late,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And chapel aisles are filled with peace and prayer.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Christ is there.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ah, dreams that haunt these keys of ivory—!<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Et verbum caro factum est</i>, they sing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And lo! the years are as a day to me.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I kneel among the quiet ones again<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To lay the pain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The joy of life, where light and shadow meet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At Jesus' feet.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>Some time earlier, during the period when girl-emotions translate +themselves into verse as naturally as bird-emotions translate themselves +into song, Joan had composed these lines, with the odd prescience that +frequently came to her when she "took her pen in hand." She had stepped +aside from a heated game of handball one day to jot them down; and her +play-fellows, evincing no particular surprise, had murmured to each +other, "Leave Joan alone. She's writing Poetry." For poetry is as much a +part of convent school-life as is handball.</p> + +<p>Now she was back among "the quiet ones" again, fulfilling her own +prophecy, come to lay her burden of pain and joy, if not at Jesus' feet, +at least in the safekeeping of his handmaidens. In her plain black +frock, such as convent girls wear, with her hair down in a braid and a +small apron tied about her waist, to protect her skirt from +embroidery-floss, the nuns found it hard to believe it was Joan Blair +who had come back to them out of the world, and not Joan Darcy. Only +this was a Joan who played harder than her younger self had ever played, +entering into the gaiety of the school, the basket-ball, the charades, +the skating-matches, the fancy-dress impromptus, with a feverish +eagerness which saddened the good ladies to see. Strange, vivid, +restless young creature—what she had learned of life in the short while +she had been away from them! Love, motherhood, and loss—the loss that +is saddest of all losses to women, be they wives or maids or +<i>religieuses</i>. While they in their silent corridors and hidden gardens +had listened to month after quiet month rung away by the bells, praying, +dreaming, working; tending the young life about them into blossom, +sometimes carrying with candles one of their number back to a still +place beyond the children's playground, sometimes—not often +now—receiving into their ranks one who had done with the world's ways +even before she came to know them. Truly "the quiet ones," blessed with +the peace of those who resign their wills to the will of God.</p> + +<p>Joan, gazing into their serene, pure, almost childlike faces, envied +them from her heart; but, being Joan, she asked herself wonderingly how +they could be so sure it was the will of God to which they resigned +themselves. Intelligent, fine-natured women, deliberately turning their +backs on life, deliberately closing eyes and ears to what went on in the +street just outside their cloister, lest it distract them from +contemplation of their immortal souls—Joan shook her head sharply; and +putting a veil over her hair, slipped into the chapel, where a voice +behind the cloister-screen was repeating the rosary of the Sacred Heart:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Oh, sacred heart of Jesus, burning with love for us,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Inflame our hearts with love for Thee."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The beautiful voice rose and fell in almost passionate cadence, as if it +were pleading. It ceased abruptly; and another, older voice took up the +words, with mystic tenderness. There was a faint fragrance in the +place—indeed throughout the old building—of incense and dying roses, +which Joan always called to herself "the odor of sanctity." It came back +to her sometimes poignantly in the most unexpected places.</p> + +<p>A very old lay-sister, in a white coif and shoes that creaked a trifle, +pottered about among the statues of the saints, arranging small lamps +and vases of flowers, always dropping as she passed the altar a +business-like little curtsey. Now and then a child with a veil over her +head would slip in at the door, and genuflect, and sink to her knees for +a moment's prayer. Sunlight streamed in, multi-colored, through ruby and +purple and amber glass, across the white marble Christ who stood with +hands outstretched and head bowed, suffering little children to come +unto Him....</p> + +<p>Joan, who had been reading Rénan (a fact which would have certainly +caused her expulsion from that place had it been known), quoted to +herself:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"In our bustling civilization, the memory of the life of +Galilee has been like the perfume of another world."</p></blockquote> + +<p>It seemed to her one of the true miracles that it should indeed have +persisted through our bustling civilization, through persecution and +indifference, through crass hysterical religiosity, even to this day; if +only in such places as her convent school, and little country churches +here and there, and in the homes of the very poor. That lovely, +pastoral, gentle life of Galilee, exquisite as the name itself—who +could not have been good in Galilee?</p> + +<p>"If Archie had lived then, he would have followed Christ," thought Joan +suddenly. "Followed him, and fought for him, too. And he'd never have +let the Jews get hold of him!"</p> + +<p>It was the first time she had thought of her husband in many days....</p> + +<p>Archie's letters came with faithful regularity, but he was one of the +personalities who do not carry well by letter. He informed her that he +missed her, but she was not to hurry home on his account; that Ellen was +keeping down the grocer-bill nicely; that the new man he had put on the +road wasn't doing well and he thought of putting Johnny Carmichael in +his place; that one of the water-pipes had burst and made a spot on the +wall, but nothing to fret about; and that if she needed more money be +sure to let him know. Or words to that effect.</p> + +<p>Archie, somehow, was never quite in the picture. She was better able to +reconstruct her lost girlhood without him.</p> + +<p>And Archie understood. It was he who had suggested the Convent when +Joan's doctor admitted himself dissatisfied with her condition, her slow +return to normality.</p> + +<p>"You've got a peculiarly sensitive nervous organism to deal with here," +the doctor said. "It takes very little to throw such natures off the +balance. You say she never speaks of her babies at all? I don't like +that! I'd rather have her crying about all over the place."</p> + +<p>"So would I," said poor Archie. "Then she'd cry on me, and I could +comfort her. Now I don't dare!"</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't," advised the doctor, frankly. "Better let her alone."</p> + +<p>So Archie, out of the wisdom of his love, wrote secretly to the nuns and +asked them to invite her to the Convent for awhile; and because of the +tragedy involved, the good ladies waived their rule of never permitting +married women to live in the community. They welcomed her casually, as +if her coming were no strange thing, gave her work to do, made her +useful running errands and taking the smaller girls about; for in a +religious community no one is ever idle. And Joan proved Archie's wisdom +by gradually losing her tenseness, her frantic clutching at amusement, +and growing daily in strength and poise until at last she was able to +enjoy again solitude and thought, two things of which she had for some +time been afraid.</p> + +<p>Indeed, Archie's experiment was almost too successful; for the simple, +orderly routine of the Convent was so soothing to her that she dreaded +the idea of leaving it. Days slipped into weeks; and still she postponed +the thought of going back to her empty house, to Effie May's +uncontrolled mourning, to that nursery which had been so happily +prepared for the little occupants who never occupied it.</p> + +<p>She was frightened sometimes to realize how utterly she seemed able to +forget her husband when he was not with her. If Archie was rather +frightened, too, he never admitted it, even to himself. After all, Joan +was his wife; and in his simple creed wives were bound to love their +husbands, else how could they remain wives?</p> + +<p>"She's had an awful shock," he reminded Ellen, who was growing restive. +"We've got to give her plenty of time to get over it."</p> + +<p>"Humph! and what about you? I suppose you ain't had a good deal of a +shock yourself?" muttered the old woman, savage with sympathy. "Wasn't +you bringing home toys and truck every day of the world, trains and +dolls and I don't know what all—and them not a week old yet? Your top +chiffoneer drawer's full of toys this minute."</p> + +<p>"Better give them away to the children in the neighborhood before she +sees them."</p> + +<p>"No such thing! I'll be savin' 'em for the next," said Ellen, +stoutly....</p> + +<p>Oddly enough, Joan was presently restored to her husband and her duty +through the medium of no less a person than Eduard Desmond.</p> + +<p>She was chaperoning some of the younger girls in town one day, when she +met him on the street. She was surprised by the encounter, for she had +not known he was in Washington; and she bowed uncertainly, expecting him +to be a little embarrassed.</p> + +<p>But he stopped, and held out his hand with evident pleasure. "Mrs. +Blair! you?" he exclaimed. "What wonderful luck brings you to +Washington? and where are you stopping?"</p> + +<p>Joan briefly explained.</p> + +<p>"Then," he said with a notable accession of eagerness, "Mr. Blair is not +with you?"</p> + +<p>Some long-slumbering imp of malice awoke and stirred in Joan. His +expression as he looked her up and down was unmistakable. Evidently +matrimony had detracted nothing from her in his eyes. On the contrary.</p> + +<p>"No, Mr. Blair is not with me," she replied demurely. "I am on a +vacation. Why should one carry a husband about on a vacation?"</p> + +<p>This was Longmeadow language, the native tongue of Mr. Desmond.</p> + +<p>"Why, indeed?" he murmured. "And when am I to come to see you?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not sure you are to come at all. We're not allowed masculine +callers at the Convent, I think; are we, dear?" she asked the young girl +nearest to her.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, Mrs. Blair!—on Wednesday afternoons, if they're brothers or +cousins or anything like that," replied the child shyly.</p> + +<p>Eduard smiled. "I am not a cousin or a brother—fortunately—but perhaps +I may be called 'something like that!'—Next Wednesday afternoon, then?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not really sure that I shall be able to see you," she demurred.</p> + +<p>"I am!" replied Eduard calmly; and, lifting his hat, he passed on.</p> + +<p>He proved himself a true prophet. Joan could not deny herself the bitter +satisfaction of seeing at what a small fire she had managed so to scorch +her young wings.</p> + +<p>He had been waiting half an hour in the convent parlor when she came to +him, however; and half an hour in a convent parlor is an ordeal few +forget. It was a large, bleak room divided midway by a grille, on the +inner side of which sat a lay-sister, knitting. The other side was left +for the reception of male relatives and connections; and a tongue-tied, +uneasy lot they were, slipping about on the horsehair sofas, staring +furtively at the undecorative saints who adorned the walls, conducting +their conversation obviously with a view to the other side of the +grille.</p> + +<p>"For heaven's sake, get me out of this!" murmured Desmond as Joan +approached. "I feel as if the eye of God were on me constantly!"</p> + +<p>"It's only the eye of Sister Veronica," reassured Joan, "and more her +ear than her eye, I fancy."</p> + +<p>"You don't mean that she can hear what we are saying, in there?"</p> + +<p>"I've been told there's a sounding-board concealed about this room +somewhere. It may not be true, of course; but it's wonderful how much +does get back to the Convent from the parlor."</p> + +<p>Eduard shuddered. "There's goose-flesh up and down my spine! Do come out +for a walk somewhere."</p> + +<p>She shook her head, smiling. "Can't be done! But of course you haven't +anything to say to me that Sister Veronica shouldn't hear."</p> + +<p>"Haven't I, just?" he muttered.</p> + +<p>The imp of malice stirred in her again. She asked softly, "What, for +instance?"</p> + +<p>He gave her a quick look, glanced toward the grille, and plunged, albeit +in a very low voice.</p> + +<p>"For one thing I want to tell you how lovely you've grown!"</p> + +<p>"Louder, please?" said Joan, "I missed that."</p> + +<p>He repeated it, with additions. "And you need not pretend you did not +hear me, either, you witch. What's happened to you, Joan? I always knew +you'd be a wonderful creature some day, but already!—Those exquisite +shadows under the eyes, the hollow of your cheek, your lips—What I'd +give to paint you now, my dear! Only that it would waste our time +together. How much time have you, by the way? For me, I mean?"</p> + +<p>"You find me improved, then?" she enquired, demurely.</p> + +<p>"Improved! I find you—never mind what I find you! There's a subtlety, a +fascination—But I can't express it."</p> + +<p>"There must be a subtlety indeed if <i>you</i> can't express it," she +commented; and added, "How is Mrs. Rossiter?"</p> + +<p>If she expected to disconcert him, she was disappointed. He informed her +at length as to the health, appearance, and conjugal felicity of Mrs. +Rossiter.</p> + +<p>"They're actually pulling it off," he said interestedly. "They're making +a go of it. I've always had the theory that once a divorcée always a +divorcée—the old-fashioned gentlewoman is more to my taste. Divorce +always seems to me so—so unnecessary—But in this case it appears I am +mistaken, and nobody is happier to admit it. They positively fancy each +other, Philemon and Baucis, all that sort of thing!—By the way, I had +no idea you had made such friends with May. You gave her my bracelet, it +seems. Cruel of you, Joan!"</p> + +<p>"Did it hurt your feelings?" she murmured, dimpling.</p> + +<p>"Oh, frightfully. How did you have the heart? She positively gloated +over me."</p> + +<p>"Father would never have allowed me to accept anything so handsome from +a passing acquaintance. One had to do something with it, you see, so—"</p> + +<p>"Passing acquaintance!" he interrupted, reproachfully. "Surely I was +more to you than that? Our evening under the beech-tree—shall I ever +forget it?"</p> + +<p>Joan, paling a little, remarked, "Sister Veronica appears interested."</p> + +<p>"Damn!" muttered Eduard, and shortly took his leave. But first he gave +her a note from Mrs. Desmond urging her to dine with them on any evening +she cared to name.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"Betty is abroad," wrote Mrs. Desmond, "and I know you have no +heart for gaieties just now, so there will be only the four of +us, a family party."</p></blockquote> + +<p>Joan hesitated.</p> + +<p>"Of course we all realize that you are not in a mood for gaiety," said +Eduard with a sympathetic glance at her black. "But I <i>must</i> see you +somehow!—and among old friends, who understand—"</p> + +<p>To ward off any mention of things that hurt, she hastily agreed to dine +with the Desmonds on the following Saturday.</p> + +<p>Sister Veronica, (who happened to be quite deaf) wondered what could +have occurred to give the poor child such an expression of—not exactly +pleasure. It was more like triumph. She would have made no sense of what +Joan was muttering under her breath, Salome-wise, as she left the +parlor: "Off with his head! Oh, off with his head, <i>and step on it</i>!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIV" id="CHAPTER_XLIV"></a>CHAPTER XLIV</h2> + + +<p>Not only the older girls, but more than one of the nuns, made some +excuse to come into Joan's little room when she was dressing that +Saturday evening. The rumor had gone forth that their charge was +beginning to take interest in worldly affairs again, and the good ladies +congratulated each other. While they themselves had forsworn the +pleasures of the world, they were quite aware that for some these had +their uses, if only as an anodyne. They took, too, a quite feminine +pleasure in Joan's frock, a simple black chiffon with transparent +sleeves, which she had cut out a little at the neck to make it suitable +for the evening.</p> + +<p>"I suppose," said the Reverend Mother, making her turn round and round +for inspection, "that this is what they call in the world a décolleté +basque, is it not? And very becoming, too! Only"—she added with the +frank conventual innocence that occasionally startled Joan, "does not +such a display of the person tend to encourage lust of the eye, my +child?"</p> + +<p>Joan laughed a little. "Let us hope so, Mother!" she murmured. "We +strive to please"—a remark which the old lady trusted that she had +misunderstood.</p> + +<p>Her striving on that occasion was by no means in vain. There seems +something peculiarly alluring to the masculine taste (as women of the +oldest profession in the world are quite aware) about black. Joan, with +nothing to relieve her somberness except a cluster of white gardenias at +her breast, would have held the gaze of any man who saw her as surely as +she held that of Eduard and of Betty's father, who had hitherto not +known his daughter's friend and openly regretted his missed opportunity. +She was one of the women whom motherhood, even denied and thwarted +motherhood, gives a momentary poignant beauty, of the sort that Leonardo +loved to paint. Betty's father was indeed so regretful of his missed +opportunity that it was with some difficulty Eduard secured the +tête-à-tête upon which he had counted.</p> + +<p>"At last!" he sighed when he had finally manœuvered her into the +conservatory to admire orchids. "I began to think this was going to be +another wasted hour, like my ghastly experience of the monastic +life.—Do you realize, my dear, that I am entitled to a little praise +and comforting on your part?"</p> + +<p>"Just why?"</p> + +<p>"Why? Why, because of the discretion, the magnanimity, in fact the utter +damn-fool quixotism of my late conduct! At Longmeadow, you know. Leaving +you—when I might have stayed!"</p> + +<p>Joan was rather startled. She had not expected him to carry the war into +the enemy's country to such an extent as this.</p> + +<p>"That makes twice," he murmured, leaning over her, "that I've let you go +unscathed, my dear. When you left school—and when you came back to me. +But—Fate is too strong for us. You're not expecting me, I hope, to let +you go a third time?"</p> + +<p>"In just about five minutes," she smiled, glancing at her wristwatch. +"I've ordered my taxi for ten o'clock."</p> + +<p>He gave a little exclamation, and caught her hand. "Don't pretend to be +so cool and indifferent, you witch! I know you better than that. +You—cool and indifferent! Have I forgotten that night under the +beech-tree? Have you?"</p> + +<p>Joan suddenly blazed out at him, white with anger. "No! I've not +forgotten that. Nor afterwards."</p> + +<p>"Afterwards?"</p> + +<p>"Will you be good enough to tell me in plain language what was your idea +in running away?"</p> + +<p>He eyed her appreciatively. He liked a touch of temper in a woman. It +gave them a zest your amiable creatures lack.</p> + +<p>"Why, Beautiful, what else as a man of honor could I do? A thing like +that doesn't stand still, you know! The flare dies out—or it goes +further. Our flare would not have died out."</p> + +<p>Her lip curled. "And as 'a man of honor' it never occurred to you that +we might preserve our flare, as it were, in marriage?"</p> + +<p>He sighed ruefully. "Oh, yes, it did! That temptation, too, I had to +fight. For you see, my dear, I don't believe in marriage. I've seen too +much of it (vicariously). Believe me, it preserves no flares! It +quenches them. The thing's as fatal as death—though not, thank God, as +inevitable! I will not put a relation I value to a test it will not +bear," he explained, evidently in earnest. "What!—tie a creature of +spirit and fire like yourself to the duty of forever loving one man, +obeying one man, giving yourself into his hands to break at his leisure? +Can you think of any surer way of killing love than to make a duty of +it? 'Duty'—the most hideous, cold, Puritanical word in our hideous, +cold, Puritanical language! The French put it better. <i>Devoir</i> suggests +something that is by no means cold. Therefore, dearest girl"—he kissed +her hands—"let me pay you my <i>devoirs</i> always, and be sure that I shall +never trouble you with anything so unpleasant as a 'duty.'—Why, suppose +I had taken you then, bound you hand and foot to me by law—think how +bored we should be with each other already! It would be from me you +would be taking a vacation, instead of from the unfortunate Blair." +(Joan winced.) "As it is—"</p> + +<p>"Well?" she prompted, veiling her eyes. "As it is—Eduard?"</p> + +<p>He drew her toward him with little inarticulate murmurs. She took a +fleeting glance at the face approaching hers. It was flushed, the eyes a +trifle glazed as if he had been drinking. He breathed hard.</p> + +<p>"How unbecoming it is to them!" she thought, but without resisting. (The +reader who happens to like Joan would do well to skip this paragraph. It +is not our heroine at her best.)</p> + +<p>"As it is," said Eduard rather hoarsely, "we have each other for all +time, my Beautiful! Nothing to bind us, nothing to hold us, except our +sacred—er—"</p> + +<p>"Flare?" prompted Joan, helpfully.</p> + +<p>But he was not paying his usual attention to words just then. He lifted +her face to his, and closed his eyes the better to savor what was +coming....</p> + +<p>An unexpected sound caused him to open them again. It was laughter, +issuing from the very lips he was about to enjoy; not hysterical, +nervous laughter such as might have been pardoned under the +circumstances, but cool and sweet, and unimpassioned as the tinkling of +ice in a pitcher.</p> + +<p>"You're not really trying to warm it up and serve it over again?" +protested Joan, as she extricated herself from his embrace. "How absurd! +I thought you were too much of an artist for that. And at your age, +too!"</p> + +<p>She sauntered back to the others, still laughing over her shoulder. He +did not follow.</p> + +<p>Which may be said to have been the end of Eduard Desmond, so far as this +chronicle is concerned....</p> + +<p>But it was also the end of what Joan had disloyally spoken of to him as +her vacation. The word stuck in her memory, and she was ashamed of it. +Her heart yearned toward Archie.</p> + +<p>The nuns bade her a delighted farewell; and all the way home she made +amends for her long neglect of him by thinking of her husband +constantly. By contrast with Eduard's smooth hair, his slim hands, and +well-modulated, expressive voice, Archie appeared to her the very +epitome of manliness. She idealized his defects into beauties, big ears, +clumsiness, and all. She remembered with a thrill how easily he carried +her upstairs when she was tired, how he went tiptoeing squeakily about +the house in the morning for fear of waking her, whispering in tones +that would have roused the dead—Blessed, funny old Archie! She could +hardly wait for the sight of him.</p> + +<p>Yet when she did see him, through the car-window, watching the platform +for her appearance as tensely as a terrier watches a rathole, Joan +shrank back with a faint gasp. He was looking quite appallingly dapper, +with shiny new shoes and a Derby hat—an article of wear not designed +for people with badly adjusted ears; and his mouth hung slightly open in +his eagerness, showing the infantile front teeth, through which issued +(she could almost hear it) a sort of a tuneful hissing, as was his way +in moments of emotion, just to show that he was not nervous or excited +in the least.</p> + +<p>Joan shrank back, the last person to leave the train. And as she passed +a mirror, catching a glimpse of her pale face within it she whispered +piteously, "Oh, Joan Darcy, what have you done?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLV" id="CHAPTER_XLV"></a>CHAPTER XLV</h2> + + +<p>For the modern woman there lies, fortunately, a life between the two +extremes of domesticity and frivolity, both of which Joan had tried and +found wanting. Or rather she had not found domesticity wanting so much +as temporary—a period of tranquil suspense, as it were, leading up to +an inevitable climax which had somehow failed to come off. Even had her +babies lived, it is to be doubted whether Joan could have long satisfied +herself with domesticity pure and simple; and she could no more resume +it now than a cocoon may be resumed by a former occupant which has +sprouted wings.</p> + +<p>As for frivolity, plenty of that offered itself to a young matron with a +charming house and a husband who was generally spoken of as a rising +young business man. ("Rising," Archie certainly was; he had to be, to +keep up with his rising expenditures.)</p> + +<p>But Joan asked perhaps too much of frivolity. She had been heard to +remark that "nothing made the social game possible except flirtation and +real talk; neither of which were to be had in Louisville by people who +valued their reputations"; a rather sweeping comment, of the sort which +soon made Joan's tongue a trifle over-famous. Simple, unexacting folk +who liked a good dinner with a game of cards afterwards for modest +stakes, and now and then a little dancing with each other's spouses, +just to keep in touch with the new steps, began to be rather afraid of +young Mrs. Blair. And Joan was equally afraid of them. She had a morbid +suspicion that dullness might be catching.</p> + +<p>There was something appalling to her, too, in what has been somewhere +called "the infinite littleness of social life." It seemed to have a +strangely flattening effect upon its devotees—promoting some, demoting +others, all to the same unstimulating level, while the wheels within +wheels shifted and reformed kaleidoscopically. These wheels within these +wheels puzzled Joan. "Climbers," such as her step-mother, she was able +to understand and even to sympathize with. It seemed to her quite +natural and thoroughly American for water to seek a higher level than +its own. That was merely progress, merely self-respect made visible. To +"get on" appeared a quite legitimate ambition; but to "get in"—that was +another matter. Snobbery, that word of many interpretations, meant to +Joan the extreme form of self-confessed vulgarity.</p> + +<p>"If it were friends they were after, I could understand," she said to +Emily Carmichael. "Everybody wants friends—we're all lonely. But you +have got to select your real friends one at a time, not in assorted +clumps, like bananas. And one's real friends so rarely happen to be +friends with each other—you've noticed that? Why this passion for +organizing ourselves into group-formation, anyway?"</p> + +<p>"For purposes of offense and defense," explained Emily. "So that we may +leave the Mrs. Websters out, and let the Joan Darcys in, of course."</p> + +<p>They had been discussing Joan's near neighbor, a well-bred, +sweet-mannered, adaptable young woman who had recently laid siege to the +town, and with whom Joan was forming one of those propinquity +friendships which are destined not to last. None of Mrs. Webster's +friendships appeared to last. She had used acquaintance after +acquaintance gracefully as a stepping-stone to higher things, leaving, +however, not a single enemy behind her. It was the fashion in the +various circles through which she had passed to say how charming Mrs. +Webster was, even after she seemed done with them. And now, through +Joan, she was laying tactful but so far unsuccessful siege to the +Jabberwocks; cleverness (in moderation) having become quite the smart +thing nowadays.</p> + +<p>"It is not our massive intellects which attract her, however," commented +Emily. "It is—well, modesty forbids me to say just what it is. The sign +<i>verboten</i> is to some natures as a red rag to a bull. They simply must +have it to play with."</p> + +<p>"Well, but why should anybody be <i>verboten</i> to Kathy Webster?" defended +Joan. "She's charming, and perfectly intelligent, and unmistakably a +lady—which is more than one can say with confidence of some of our most +indefatigable social leaders. Look at Mrs. Gunther, for +instance!—didn't you tell me her father used to deliver meat at your +door out of his own cart?"</p> + +<p>"Excellent meat it was, too. Father says we have never had a decent +butcher since."</p> + +<p>"And lo, what house more exclusive than theirs?"</p> + +<p>"Naturally! It has to be. People like that seem to develop a sort of +protective instinct which guards them from any possible contact with +vulgarity until such time as they shall have accumulated enough +refinement to be immune. Not for them the company of any chance newcomer +like Mrs. Webster! They have to be careful."</p> + +<p>"But shouldn't you think they'd have a sort of fellow-feeling for the +new arrivals?"</p> + +<p>"Dear me, no! What's the good of attaining a pinnacle if you're going to +share it with somebody who might push you off?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Webster's pursuit of Joan was not entirely opportunism. There was a +good deal of admiration in it, mixed with a sort of malice which the +larger nature had difficulty in comprehending. Joan found herself +entered most unwillingly into an undignified petty rivalry with her +neighbor. If she entertained some of her friends at luncheon without +Mrs. Webster, the other instantly retaliated by giving a luncheon +herself without Joan, sending in dessert and decorations afterwards to +press home the point. If the Blair house in Spring put out new awnings, +the Webster house erupted not only into awnings but into flower-boxes as +well, with a corresponding air of triumph in its mistress. If Joan +received some invitation which the other did not, there arose between +them a slight, unmistakable coolness; whereas, if the contrary occurred, +Mrs. Webster became modest and cordial again.</p> + +<p>Yet when this unpleasant rivalry lay dormant, the two had many a +friendly, neighborly time together over their sewing and their +gardening; and once when Joan was taken suddenly ill the other showed +herself genuinely kind, quick with womanly help and sympathy.</p> + +<p>Joan could never quite make up her mind whether it was the pettiness of +Society which makes the Mrs. Websters, or the Mrs. Websters who make the +pettiness of Society. In any case, she lost what little taste she had +for a purely social career. It was not good enough.</p> + +<p>And so she turned the pent-up energies of her nature into those +activities which are summed up nowadays under the general title of +Clubwork. Investigations, commissions, agitations of all sorts came in +for their share of her attention. She soon created for herself quite a +following of less daring spirits, among them Emily Carmichael and others +of the Jabberwock group who had graduated from the cocoon. It became +known that whenever young Mrs. Blair undertook a thing, it went with a +rush, not so much through her own efforts as through those of her +henchmen. She was recognized in club circles, despite her youth, as +something more valuable than a mere worker; she was an executive—All of +which fed her vanity and her sense of usefulness; and left somewhere +within her an aching void of dissatisfaction.</p> + +<p>Suffrage-work came nearer filling this void than had anything else, and +that, it must be confessed, for a rather ignoble reason. It gave her a +chance to make speeches. In the back of her mind, with the very real +conviction that the ballot is a necessity which women are unjustly +denied, lurked also the suspicion that the world is already aware of the +fact without any further need of agitation. Nevertheless she continued +to agitate, because she liked to exercise an ability which otherwise +might have remained forever undiscovered—There is no pleasure in life +equal to that of employing skillfully the talents that have been given +us.</p> + +<p>She made the discovery of her gift quite by accident. At some woman's +meeting, a lady who was to have spoken on the subject of the Federal +Amendment failed to appear, and Joan, who had recently read up on the +matter (it may be remembered that she was what the actors call "quick +study"), volunteered to take her place, meaning simply to give the gist +of the matter and thus relieve a harassed chairman. But when she found +herself on the platform facing interested and expectant faces, something +happened that had occasionally happened before when she "play-acted" for +the girls at school. Joan left herself, and became a part of the +audience.</p> + +<p>She listened to her voice going on and on, with amused approval. It was +a voice rather like her father's, carrying and flexible, and peculiarly +rich in its intonations.</p> + +<p>"It doesn't really matter much what I say," thought Joan, listening to +herself; "it's how I say it. If I drop my voice a note here, they ought +to frown." (They did.) "Now I'll have them smile a little, perhaps +chuckle. After I stop, no applause, I think—just a nice, thoughtful +silence." (All of which came faithfully to pass.)</p> + +<p>When she stepped down from that platform, her reputation as a public +speaker was made. Thereafter she delivered speeches whenever and +wherever she was asked, to the incredulous delight of Archie.</p> + +<p>"Say, come over and hear the wife do her little spiel to-night!" he +would urge upon all his acquaintance. "It's a treat!—stands right up +and hands it to 'em hot off the reel, without a note or anything. You +can see her little old brain workin' while she talks—and lookin' pretty +as a picture all the time!"</p> + +<p>His pride in her was such that he presented her with a successor to +Lizzie, a more pretentious member of the Lizzie family, in fact, in +which to get about to her numerous committee meetings.</p> + +<p>"Of course we can afford it," he said in answer to her demur. "Haven't +all your friends got automobiles? Well, then!"</p> + +<p>Joan accomplished much in the way of by-product to this satisfaction of +her vanity. Her youthful charm and her good breeding got her a hearing +frequently where more strenuous representatives of the cause had failed; +and through her many hitherto uncertain lambs were gathered safely into +the fold. On one occasion, to her astonishment, Joan discovered the +three Misses Darcy in her audience, wearing expressions of shrinking +alarm. But if they had come—not to scoff, they were too polite for +that: let us say to deprecate,—they remained to join.</p> + +<p>"I declare it's <i>shameful</i> the way we women have been treated all this +time!" cried Miss Iphigenia afterwards, truculently signing the card +which made of her a suffragette. "I'd no idea! Not allowed a word in +edgewise, the gentlemen spending all the money and making all the laws, +ordering us about like we were so many white slaves—"</p> + +<p>"I don't recall that darling mama was ever treated in just that way by +dear papa?" interjected Miss Virginia, uncertainly.</p> + +<p>"Pooh! Exceptions," snorted Miss Iphigenia (if one so gentle could be +said to snort). "Exceptions can be made to prove anything, can't they, +Joan? Why, we haven't even had a say-so as to whether we should marry or +not. Simply had to sit back and say 'Thank you, sir!' to any gentleman +who was kind enough to ask us!"</p> + +<p>Here Miss Virginia was able thoroughly to concur. "And if nobody <i>was</i> +kind enough to ask us—Oh, my dears, I begin to think that if we could +have had the ballot in time—!"</p> + +<p>"What's more," cried Miss Iphigenia, inspired, "I mean to bring our Susy +to hear you the next time you make a speech, Joan. Yes, I do! If they +try to keep her out, we shall say she is there as our maid. If we are +all to be allowed to vote about things, colored and white alike, it's +time for the colored women to be taught how!"—Which Joan justly +regarded as a signal victory.</p> + +<p>But at the same time she chuckled inwardly over the mental vision of an +audience of colored lady voters, swaying to and fro with occasional +unctuous shouts of, "Bress us, dat's so! Um, yas, my Lawd! Come down, +come down and gadder us sinners into de fold!"</p> + +<p>Occasionally, in the pursuance of her various public successes, Joan was +thrown into contact with people whom she classified under the heading of +Intelligentzia. There were plenty of these in Louisville, thinkers and +students and writers, a growing number of names which were rather better +known away from the city than in it. But of these Joan fought a little +shy. She cared more for books than for the making of them, had no wish +to peep behind the scenes for fear of losing her illusions. She got the +impression, too, that professional thinkers and writers were so busy +observing and interpreting the life about them as to have somehow lost +human touch with it. And Joan was nothing if not a humanist. She had a +youthful horror of being classified among the <i>bas bleux</i>.</p> + +<p>"Men do so hate a bluestocking," she said once pensively to her friend +Emily.</p> + +<p>"Men? Well, what of that? Yours doesn't!—and you don't want anybody +else's men, do you?"</p> + +<p>"None that I have seen so far," admitted Joan. "But you never can tell. +They say it's in the dangerous thirties that we really begin to sit up +and take notice—Anyway, I shall <i>never</i> be married and settled enough +to relish the idea of men running away from me as if I were something +catching!"</p> + +<p>So she continued to avoid, rather than to cultivate, the company of the +Intelligentzia, thereby denying herself her birthright.</p> + +<p>And at twenty-five, a leading citizeness of her community, with +engagements so thick on her calendar that there was barely time for an +occasional meal at home, she woke every morning with the thought, "If +something doesn't happen to-day, I shall scream!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVI" id="CHAPTER_XLVI"></a>CHAPTER XLVI</h2> + + +<p>At that stage of life, something usually does happen....</p> + +<p>Joan, coming home from a late committee-meeting one afternoon, realized +with a sort of pang, as she turned into the court where she lived, that +Indian summer had come and almost gone without her being aware of it. +The golden rain of leaves falling about her, the oddly wistful smell of +autumn smoke in the air, gave her a twinge of something like +homesickness; of sorrow because so many such evenings had come and gone +unnoticed. Words of Fiona McLeod came to her mind.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"We are a perishing clan among the sons of God, because of the +slow waning of our joy, of our passionate delight, in the +Beauty of the World."</p></blockquote> + +<p>"How <i>can</i> one enjoy the Beauty of the World alone?" asked Joan suddenly +of herself....</p> + +<p>Through the windows of some near-by house came a man's voice singing a +little Russian lullaby that she had not heard in many years. Her mother +had once made an English version of it:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Hush, my dear one, hush, my baby,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">(Byushky, byu),<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Smiles the moon upon thy cradle,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Smiles thy mother, too.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Cossack art thou in thy dreaming,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">(Byushky, byu).<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blood and tears and fear and glory<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Shall I know through you.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"But to-night thou art my small one,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">(Byushky, byu),<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the moon to bless thy slumber,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And thy mother, too."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Joan walked slowly and listened. For all the simplicity of the air and +accompaniment, it was an artist who sang, and he sang in Russian.</p> + +<p>She was hungry for music. It was one of the things she had deliberately +done without of late, pronouncing it to herself for some odd reason "not +safe." She thought the voice came from the house of a neighbor who +occasionally entertained musicians—But she was mistaken. It came from +her own house.</p> + +<p>She opened her door, and stood there staring into the twilit room, her +slim grace outlined against the golden rain of falling leaves outside. +Stefan Nikolai gazed at her over the top of the piano with a quiet smile +of welcome, and finished his song. Joan burst into tears.</p> + +<p>Had Archie been there, he would have rushed to the rescue, comforting, +exclaiming, asking questions; and these methods failing, he would have +called anxiously upon Ellen and the bottle of valerian.</p> + +<p>But Archie was not there.... Nikolai went on playing softly, until the +tears had spent themselves. Then he said as if they had parted +yesterday: "I came to see why you no longer write to me, my dear. Is it +because you are too happy?"</p> + +<p>Joan began feverishly to light lamps and candles. "You must think me a +f-fool, Stefan!" She was dabbing at her eyes. "It's just—Mother used to +sing that song, you know."</p> + +<p>"I know. She learned it from me when you were very little—One is never +a fool to weep, Joan. It is only the fools who do not weep."</p> + +<p>"Now," she cried, turning in the lamplight. "Stand there and let me look +at you!"</p> + +<p>He stood where she bade him, a slim, erect, very distinguished figure in +foreign-cut clothes, with a rather Mephistophelian close clipped beard, +and singularly black eyes, eloquent in an otherwise impassive face. They +met her gaze now so tenderly, so caressingly, that something seemed to +melt in her heart which had long been pent there. She held out both +hands.</p> + +<p>"Ob, Stefan, Stefan! I am so glad!—And how handsome you are! I had +forgotten that."</p> + +<p>He laughed a little, and bent over her hands, kissing them lightly.</p> + +<p>"Why, you've never been so formal as that before!"</p> + +<p>"You have never been a grown-up married woman before."</p> + +<p>"I see! You mean that we've become the same age now?" She looked at him +more closely. "And we have! Why, Stefan, you're nothing like as old as I +used to think you!"</p> + +<p>"I never have been," he smiled. "I rather fancied you might discover +that fact some day. But—you wouldn't wait, my dear." He turned to some +packages on the top of the piano. "Have you become too grown-up and +married to like presents?"</p> + +<p>The brief moment of awkwardness passed before Joan was quite sure it had +been there. She clapped her hands. "Presents—for me? Oh, and for Ellen +Neal, and even for Archie, whom you don't know! Stefan, how dear of +you!"</p> + +<p>"Your people are my people," he said. "Also, I wish to propitiate them +into allowing me the freedom of your company, you see."</p> + +<p>"Then you're going to stay for some time?" she cried, delightedly.</p> + +<p>"As long as I am allowed to—'Home is the sailor, home from sea, and the +hunter home from the hill'—"</p> + +<p>"Till he begins to feel an itching in his wanderfoot again," said Joan, +making a little face at him. "I know you!"</p> + +<p>At that moment Ellen came in to light the lamps. "Oh, you've come, Miss +Joan, have you? I thought it was about time! Mr. Archie'll be home +before long," she said primly, and was about to withdraw when Joan cried +to her, "Nellen, have you seen Mr. Nikolai?"</p> + +<p>"Sure I have. How else did you s'pose he got into the house? I'm puttin' +a place on the supper-table for him," she replied, tossing her head.</p> + +<p>With years Ellen's temper did not become less difficult; but Joan was at +a loss to account for its present manifestation.</p> + +<p>"Of course you are," she murmured soothingly. "But I don't believe +you've seen the lovely present he's brought you all the way +from—Shanghai, is it, this time?"</p> + +<p>Ellen drew near, fascinated by the shimmering length of purple crêpe. +"Silk! For me? Shucks, what would I be doin' with stuff like that? It's +much too fine for the likes of me!"</p> + +<p>"Nothing is too fine for the likes of you," replied Nikolai, with quiet +sincerity.</p> + +<p>"Why, you'll be perfectly grand in it, Nellen, with the Battenberg +collar and cuffs!"</p> + +<p>She muttered, mollified, "I don't know as a single woman ought to accept +such things off a gentleman."</p> + +<p>"It's all right if her chaperon says she may," reassured Joan, keeping a +straight face.</p> + +<p>But when the old woman had gone, she said to her friend, "I'm ashamed of +her, Stefan! I can't think what gets into her cranky old head!"</p> + +<p>"It is always so at first. I have to win her confidence afresh each +time. I think the faithful soul regards me as a wolf menacing the safety +of her sheepfold."</p> + +<p>"That's because you are what she calls a 'for'ner.'"</p> + +<p>"It's because I am a Jew. Few really practising Christians can find it +in their hearts to trust a Jew."</p> + +<p>"But you're only half a Jew!"</p> + +<p>"You might as well say 'only half a negro,'" he remarked without +bitterness. "It is the blood that counts, not the amount of it...."</p> + +<p>He had brought her the gray sapphires he once promised her, a long +string of them with pearls between, and a tassel of pearls at either +end.</p> + +<p>She exclaimed with pleasure, "What an exquisite jewel!" (She had learned +more about such things than in the days when she secretly scorned her +aquamarine because it was not set in diamonds.) "How the pearls bring +out the color of the stones, and how wonderfully they match, Stefan!"</p> + +<p>"Do they?" He looked critically from the stones to her eyes. "Yes, they +are darker now than the aquamarine. Shadows have come into them—The +sapphires are better."</p> + +<p>She patted his hand. "It <i>is</i> so nice to have somebody about again who +notices whether I have eyes or not!"</p> + +<p>"Surely your Archibald notices?"</p> + +<p>"If he does he never mentions them! He would think it rather indelicate, +like praising something of his own, you know."</p> + +<p>Nikolai smiled, gravely. "That is a very safe state for a husband to be +in—I hope you do not take advantage of it, Joan?"</p> + +<p>She gave him a quick glance. "I wonder what you mean by that?"</p> + +<p>But Nikolai did not explain. He said instead, "I am sorry you have no +children."</p> + +<p>She stiffened. Among her friends it had come to be understood that +children were best not mentioned to Joan. There was a hidden bruise +which time seemed to have left unhealed.</p> + +<p>Nikolai, however, chose not to heed the warning of her expression.</p> + +<p>"A home without children in it," he added, "seems to us wandering folk +only half a home."</p> + +<p>Joan stood up, a hand at her throat. "What do you think," she said in a +stifled voice, "it seems to us who are not wandering folk?..."</p> + +<p>In three questions Stefan Nikolai had discovered about the Blair +household all and more than he wanted to know.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVII" id="CHAPTER_XLVII"></a>CHAPTER XLVII</h2> + + +<p>At that moment there was the sound of a latch-key in the door and Archie +came in; a weary, cheerful Archie, not quite so dapper as of old, but +rather the better for that, perhaps.</p> + +<p>"Hello, darlingest!—'Late as usual.' There—I said it first! Things do +sort of pile up on a person. Why, look who's here? Wait! I know you—" +he extended an eager hand of welcome to the man who rose to greet him. +"I'll bet my hat it's Joan's pal, the author. Guessed you, didn't I? +Only you said he was an old chap, Joan!—Well, well, well! Welcome to +our city. I thought you were projickin' round, as the darkies say, in +Mesopotamia or Timbuctoo or some such spot. Gee, it's been good as a +geography lesson just to read the postmarks on your letters, sir! You've +come to stay with us, of course? Hotel—nonsense!"</p> + +<p>The two shook hands warmly. Despite the breeziness of her husband's +manner, Joan detected in it a respect which pleased her. This was no +mere family friend Archie was welcoming to his city; it was Mr. Nikolai, +the Author. She loved his little boyish bursts of hero-worship.</p> + +<p>"Look at my beautiful present," she said, slipping her hand through his +arm and exhibiting her necklace. "You've got a present, too. It's like +Christmas!"</p> + +<p>Archie was pleased as a child with his gift, a lacquer box surmounted by +an ivory monkey which, when a handle was turned, reached down into a box +and lifted out a cigarette.</p> + +<p>"Ain't they a wonderful little people, though, the Japanese?" he +demanded originally. "Who but them would have thought of such a trick?"</p> + +<p>"'They!' dear," murmured Joan.</p> + +<p>"'They,' then," he repeated, unabashed. "Can't be grammatical till I've +had my supper. I'm dead beat."</p> + +<p>It was not the first time of late that Archie had come home "dead beat," +though he did not often admit it. The treasurer of his company was ill, +and Archie, upon whom Mr. Moore was growing to depend for many things, +had volunteered to undertake the treasurer's work in addition to his +own. But he had not the same gift for finance as for salesmanship, and +took little joy in his new honors; except for the additional increase in +his salary. Joan, to whom money meant nothing so long as she could pay +her bills promptly, was rather troubled by the growing mercenariness of +her husband. He seemed to be always thinking in terms of dollars and +cents.</p> + +<p>But Archie lost his unwonted air of fatigue during dinner in his +interest in the tale of Mr. Nikolai's travels. Nikolai had the writer's +gift of accumulating odd experiences, so that even Ellen lingered unduly +about the table. Archie was enthralled.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it just as good as a geography book to hear him?" he demanded +several times. "To think of the natives of Yezo tattooing blue mustaches +on the girl-babies to make sure they'll catch a husband! Ho, ho, that +tickles me! There's a tip for Cousin Virginia, Joan."</p> + +<p>Here Ellen, who had been making her fourth unnecessary round with the +potatoes, suddenly spluttered and retired to her pantry.</p> + +<p>("The ice," remarked Nikolai to Joan, "is beginning to break.")</p> + +<p>"I've always thought," mused Archie, "that I'd like to see the world a +little myself some time. Armadillos on their native heath, Esquimaux +eating tallow candles, the Latin Quarter in Paris whooping it up—things +like that. But now," he finished with a happy glance at his wife, "I'm +glad enough to be allowed to stay just where I am."</p> + +<p>"Who wouldn't be?" murmured his guest. "With such a charming home—"</p> + +<p>"You ought to have been here when my garden was growing," said Archie, +highly gratified. "If I do say it myself, there's not a farmer +in the State raises better bib-lettuce than I do. As for our +asparagus—yum-yum! Simply melts in the mouth."</p> + +<p>The other looked at him very kindly. "Was that also one of your earlier +dreams—to be a farmer?"</p> + +<p>Archie nodded. "It's always seemed to me about the finest thing a man +could do, if he were able to—live on the land as he was intended to, +raise what he needs to eat and a little more for his friends; chickens +and pigs and a cow, and perhaps a little blooded stock if he could +manage it—" He broke off with a faint sigh.</p> + +<p>"Why, dear," cried his wife, surprised, "I never suspected you of these +bucolic ambitions!"</p> + +<p>"I reckon most men have 'em, if they'll own up to it—don't they, Mr. +Nikolai? Look how all boys love to dig in the dirt!... But you needn't +worry, darlingest. I'm never going to take <i>you</i> off and bury you in the +country. I know better than that!"</p> + +<p>It was late when Nikolai rose to leave them, declining an urgent +invitation to occupy their guest-room.</p> + +<p>"No, I must get back to the hotel and relieve Sacha's mind. If I do not +he will certainly set out to find me, and as he has no language but +Russian, that might lead to complications."</p> + +<p>"Who," demanded Joan, "is Sacha, pray? Have you been stylish enough to +set up a valet?"</p> + +<p>"It is Sacha who appears to have set me up. I had occasion once to do +him a kindness, and he thereupon attached himself permanently to my +person. There is no creature on earth so grateful as a grateful +Russian."</p> + +<p>Joan took him by the arms and made him sit down again. "Not a foot do +you stir till you tell us all about it!" she proclaimed, scenting a +story.</p> + +<p>"About what? Sacha? Well!—In a village where I stopped for awhile a +young mouzhik had been very badly beaten and thrown into prison to await +trial, and things promised to go rather badly with him. So—"</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute. <i>Why</i> had he been beaten?"</p> + +<p>"For murder," said Nikolai calmly.</p> + +<p>His audience gasped.</p> + +<p>"Only the murder was not successful," he continued, "Sacha was +unfortunately interrupted before he had completed the job."</p> + +<p>"Unfortunately!"</p> + +<p>"Yes. The headman of the village had taken Sacha's little sister against +her will, and the boy did what he could to avenge her. The law is not of +much use in such cases—to peasants, at least. The night before I left, +some of his friends liberated him from the village jail, and brought him +to me. Their trust in the power of learning is piteous. They demanded +that I take him away with me to America. That was a little difficult +without a passport, but I managed to smuggle him over the border."</p> + +<p>"How?" demanded Archie, round-eyed.</p> + +<p>"In my trunk," replied Nikolai, as if this were an everyday occurrence. +"I had arranged with a carter to drive me and my luggage early the next +day to the railroad. Instead, he drove me to the border, fortunately not +very far distant. My luggage was almost smothered by the time we got +there, however, despite the air-holes we had bored in the trunk. Poor +Sacha!"</p> + +<p>"But did nobody examine your luggage?" asked Joan.</p> + +<p>Nikolai shrugged. "As I told you, in Russia there is great respect for +learning—also for roubles. I am not without friends in high places. +Such officials as I encountered quite understood that a man of learning +like myself would naturally travel with a heavy trunkful of books, +ventilated by air-holes—But I have been warned that it will not be safe +for me to return to Russia. Thanks to this episode, in connection with +recent writings of mine, I am no longer <i>persona grata</i> there." He +shrugged again.</p> + +<p>Archie's eyes were round. "Whew!" he commented. "That's what I call +life! Sounds like Michael What's-his-name, the Courier of the Czar!"</p> + +<p>"I assure you," murmured Nikolai, "that I am anything but a courier of +the Czar!..."</p> + +<p>Later, when they had gone upstairs, Joan came upon Archie examining her +string of sapphires, with an expression that puzzled her. It was grave, +and not very happy.</p> + +<p>"Dear," she said suddenly, "would you for any reason rather not have me +accept this present from Stefan? It is very handsome, I know. But he is +a rich man, my oldest friend, and he has been giving me things of this +sort ever since I was a baby."</p> + +<p>He turned on her a look of pure astonishment. "Not accept it! Why, +sweetheart, I'm tickled as I can be that such a beautiful thing should +be given to you. It looks like you, too, somehow, as if it had been +specially made for you. I was only wishing—" he sighed faintly—"that I +could give you things like this myself. And those Mandarin coats, and +laces and all he sends you, and—oh, life generally! You ought to see +the world, Joan, like he does. Maybe you can," he added hopefully, "as +soon as I get a little ahead."</p> + +<p>She hugged him. "Why, you old goose! you're always giving me beautiful +things. My pretty engagement-ring, and the house, and the new Lizzie, +and—You see Stefan doesn't have to provide me with dresses and three +meals a day, and put up with all my whims and megrims."</p> + +<p>"I'll bet he wishes he did!" exclaimed Archie, with one of his +occasional flashes of insight.</p> + +<p>She pulled his ears. "You think because you're in love with me yourself +that everybody else is, too! Stefan's about as much in love with me as +he was with—baby Joan. It's simply gratitude. Mother was very sweet to +him always—I've heard her say that it had been her job, and not an easy +one, to restore his faith in women. It seems that he was engaged once to +marry a girl who quite understood about his Jewish blood. But when he +took her down to the East Side in New York to see the old aunt who had +brought him to America, she couldn't stand it. She broke with him, not +because of any difference in religion, but because the aunt spoke +Yiddish and wore a horsehair wig!—Mustn't she feel like a fool, now +that he's become so famous?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know," said Archie doubtfully. "I'd kind of hate to have +Yiddish and a wig in the family myself."</p> + +<p>She looked at him in surprise. "Archie! I didn't know you were such a +snob! So long as Stefan doesn't wear a wig or speak Yiddish, what does +the aunt matter! And the funny part of it was that the aunt rather +looked down upon poor Stefan because his father had married a Gentile! +So he came to regard mother and me as his only family.... Now run along +to bed." She kissed him on his eyes, a caress that Archie loved. "I'm +going to take a dose of valerian and have a good night's sleep. It <i>is</i> +exciting having your best friend drop down on you from who knows where!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVIII" id="CHAPTER_XLVIII"></a>CHAPTER XLVIII</h2> + + +<p>It proved exciting not only to Joan. Some years earlier the arrival of +so distinguished a visitor unadvertised and unpressagented would have +caused little more than a ripple, except perhaps among what Joan called +the Intelligentzia. But now that <i>belles lettres</i> were coming quite into +fashion, the chance of knowing personally a friend of Tolstoi and +Maeterlinck, whose articles appeared in all the more intellectual +magazines, whose recent book of plays had been published simultaneously +in five languages and censored off the American stage into every +up-to-date home in the land, was one that could not be ignored.</p> + +<p>The Russian servant, too, was a picturesque addition; a great, bearded +fellow with eyes like a child, a tall sheepskin <i>papacha</i> on his head, +and his trousers tucked into wrinkled boots. This exotic apparition +frequently opened the Blair door to visitors, and even waited on them at +table, Sacha having without the aid of language won his way somehow to +the rather uncertain heart of Ellen Neal; possibly because of his +infantile appetite for sweets. He followed his master about like a dog, +and whenever Nikolai was in the front of the house, Sacha's broken +English and sudden high laugh were frequently to be heard from the rear. +There were a good many callers at the Blair house in those days.</p> + +<p>The Blairs, and incidentally their friend, also found themselves deluged +with invitations, many of which Joan accepted. She rather enjoyed +showing off her lion, whose simple dignity was quite impervious to +lionizing. His social successes amused her by their unexpectedness; for +Nikolai had no small talk and pretended to none. He paid his chance +companions the compliment of believing them to be interested in whatever +interested him; and very often they were.</p> + +<p>Once, Joan, overhearing him enlarging to an audience composed of Archie, +Emily Carmichael, and a particularly frivolous young divorcée of their +acquaintance, on the Ostwald formula for happiness, felt called upon to +come to the rescue; and received for once in her life a decided snubbing +from her husband.</p> + +<p>"Don't interrupt, Joan, please!—Mr. Nikolai's telling us something +mighty interesting. Go on, sir—G=E^2+W^2—I didn't quite get you about +the Hüttengluck and the Heldengluck?"</p> + +<p>"G," explained Nikolai, "is as you know Gluck (happiness). E stands for +Energetics; meaning activity, health, ambition, etc. W stands for +Widerwillig, one of those comprehensive words one finds only in the +German, meaning everything that runs counter to happiness, all the +by-products of activity—opposition, fatigue, trouble, etc. There are +philosophers who hold that by reducing E (the activities of life) one +also reduces W (the unpleasantnesses), thereby attaining happiness. +Renunciation, you understand;—the simple life, such as that of +Diogenes, who threw away his one utensil, the cup, when he saw a man +drinking satisfactorily out of his hand.</p> + +<p>"But the danger is that in generally reducing the formula, G also is +reduced, and may even become minus. At its best the happiness attained +in this way is what Ostwald calls Hüttengluck (hut-happiness). He +advocates instead the Heldengluck (hero-happiness). Square, he says, +both your Energetics and your Widerwillig, and the result will be a +doubled happiness, robust, vital. In other words, live to the top of +your powers, suffer to the top of your powers; and you will be able to +enjoy to the top of your powers."</p> + +<p>"Sure!" said Archie. "I see that. Me for Ostwald!"</p> + +<p>The little divorcée remarked in an aside to Joan, "He certainly does +make you think, this high-brow beau of yours! But I <i>like</i> to think, +sometimes."</p> + +<p>It taught Joan a lesson. She recalled a sentence of Trevelyan's: "A man +who has too much sense to overrate his own qualities will often make +amends to his self-esteem by underrating his neighbor's."</p> + +<p>She realized that she might have been making such a mistake herself. If, +as she had complained, there was no real talk to be had in society, were +not she and people like her responsible?</p> + +<p>If a scholar such as Stefan Nikolai found it worth while to give of his +best to simpler comprehensions, was it not pretentious and even +ridiculous of a Joan Blair to "talk down" to them, tactfully adapting +herself to their limitations while concealing yawns behind her hand? She +had the grace to blush for herself....</p> + +<p>The companionship of Joan and Nikolai was, as Louisville interestedly +suspected, not an entirely intellectual one, however. Like all people +who work hard with their heads (and Nikolai spent many hours at his desk +daily, even in holiday seasons), he knew the full value of play, and had +always been to Joan the most delightful of play-fellows. In her +childhood he had often borrowed her for what they called +"expeditions"—visits to circuses, zoölogical gardens, museums; +boat-journeys, picnics—always to the surprise of Major Darcy, who +regarded a child as a desirable addition to any family, something to be +petted, and instructed, and even romped with in moderation, but by no +means to be made a companion of.</p> + +<p>These expeditions renewed themselves now in modified form. The two were +constantly to be met with in the most unexpected places—tramping about +the parks in the rain, making tea over a gipsy fire by the roadside, +climbing, their pockets bulging with books and apples, to the top of a +certain hill whence miles of wild rolling country were to be seen, and +the city behind them was as if it had never been. Joan had no longer to +enjoy the Beauty of the World alone. The hill became their favorite +haunt; and all through the open winter they climbed to its top almost +daily, where in the shelter of the cliff they built themselves a little +fire and sat, their backs to the world, reading and munching apples, and +talking, talking endlessly.</p> + +<p>Joan never felt that any subject bad been exhausted between them. It +seemed to her that the thoughts of a lifetime had been accumulating in +her mind, waiting for him to pass judgment upon them; and to him it was +no less than a miracle to watch her brain expanding, enlarging, visibly +blossoming under the nourishment he supplied.</p> + +<p>Perhaps her brain was not the only thing Nikolai loved to watch about +Joan. He usually managed to seat himself a little behind her, out of her +range of vision, so that his own might rest where it chose, unobserved. +But he asked no more; having learned of life to practise the Hüttengluck +which he did not preach.</p> + +<p>Sometimes Archie made a third on these expeditions; for he had developed +a great enthusiasm for Joan's famous friend, and occasionally neglected +business to sit at the feet of wisdom. Not often, however. Business had +reached a point where it declined to be neglected (the depression of +1913 was at hand); and besides Archie, despite their affectionate +welcome, felt rather <i>de trop</i> with the pair.</p> + +<p>"I'm no high-brow, and there's no use pretending I am," he confessed +once to Emily Carmichael. "But that don't keep me from appreciating +high-brows when I see 'em. It's as good as a correspondence-course in +literature to hear those two go on. I'm as much out of it, though, as if +they were talkin' the French language—which they sometimes are, at +that!"</p> + +<p>"Archie," asked Emily, hesitating, "are you never the least little +bit—jealous?" Her friendship for Joan was too unquestionable for the +remark to sound feline.</p> + +<p>He laughed. "Me jealous? What for? I've got her, haven't I? And he +hasn't, poor chap! Glad to share what I can."</p> + +<p>It happened that at the same time this conversation occurred—it was a +chance meeting down town, and Archie, always the soul of hospitality, +had invited Emily to join him in a cup of hot clam-broth at a +soda-fountain—that the pair on the hilltop were not indulging in either +literature or the French language. Joan, ensconced upon a bed of leaves +with her back against the sheltering cliff and her face warm with +fireglow, remarked dreamily:</p> + +<p>"Stefan, how have I ever managed to live here so long without you?"</p> + +<p>His smile did not reach his eyes; those beautiful, speaking, somber eyes +which reflected in them so much of the history of his race. He said, +"And how shall you manage when I am gone again?"</p> + +<p>She turned quickly to look at him. Something in his voice troubled her. +"Gone—Why, Stefan, you're not thinking of going soon?"</p> + +<p>"My book has made great progress here. It is a pleasant place for +writing—I have nearly finished."</p> + +<p>She gave an exclamation of something like anger. "You said you were +going to stay 'as long as possible.' And after all it was only to finish +another book!"</p> + +<p>"Not quite 'only,' Joan."</p> + +<p>"Then," she demanded impatiently, "why do you talk about going? I am +still here, whether the book is done or not! Are you tired of me +already?"</p> + +<p>"What do you think?"</p> + +<p>"Have you become such a gipsy that you can't stop anywhere more than a +few months?"</p> + +<p>"I wish," he said soberly, "that I might put my roots into this hillside +like a tree, and never, never stir again, except to the winds, and the +sap in my branches, and the seasons as they come and go—"</p> + +<p>"And me beside thee singing in the wilderness?" she smiled, as he did +not continue. "Say you'd need me here somewhere, even if you were a +tree!"</p> + +<p>"Every tree has one bird who lives in its branches. I should keep a nest +safe for you, my dear—you and your Archie." He broke off. "But I am not +a tree, merely a Wandering Jew to whom the time must come again to +wander."</p> + +<p>"But why, why? It is not as if you belonged anywhere else!"</p> + +<blockquote><p>"Nowhere else in the world, nor yet in Picardy,"</p></blockquote> + +<p>he said. "I have always meant, when I grew old, to come to wherever you +may be, and settle down, and grow up again with your children. But it +seems the time is not yet. I am—not old."</p> + +<p>"You? of course not! You're not even fifty, are you?"</p> + +<p>"No," he sighed, "not even fifty. Oh, to be eighty or thereabouts, with +the dross burnt out and only the spirit left, free—!"</p> + +<p>"I'd hate you to be all spirit, Stefan! Such an uncomfortable, unnatural +person to play with: like one of those cherubim, with only wings and no +<i>de quoi</i> at all.—(You remember the miracle that happened once, when +the Sistine Madonna said to the little angels in the picture with her, +'<i>Assaiez-vous, mes enfants.</i>' And they answered, '<i>Mais, Madame, nous +n'avons pas de quoi!</i>'—) I never could understand people wanting to be +old." She made a restless movement. "Perhaps you've had enough out of +life to satisfy you, but me—Why, I feel as if I had not yet begun to +live!"</p> + +<p>"Nor have you," he said quietly.</p> + +<p>"<i>Why</i>, Stefan!" she demanded, facing him. "Why don't I begin, then? +Surely enough has happened to me, more than to most people. I fling +myself into whatever comes along with all my heart. And yet—I don't +seem to be there at all! It is as if the real me were looking on at +somebody else who struggles and amuses herself and suffers. I'm tired of +looking on, tired!"</p> + +<p>"Who isn't?" he said musingly. "We want to be in the thick of the fray, +people like you and me, even if it kills us. But—we can't choose. A +good deal is chosen for us before we're born—the color of our hair, the +shapes of our noses" (he smiled and sighed), "doubtless the kinks in our +brains—Come, the fire is out, and if I allow you to take cold, Ellen +Neal will surely banish me from Eden with her flaming sword."</p> + +<p>As they walked briskly home in the early February twilight, she said +after a long silence, "See here, Stefan, if you really are going when +your book is finished, let's not waste any more time going about to +silly parties and all that. You only do it to please me, and I only do +it to show you off. Why should we pretend any longer?—Let's be together +as much as we possibly can without bothering about anybody else! Shall +we?"</p> + +<p>He looked rather startled.</p> + +<p>"I mean," she continued calmly, "to make no more engagements at all; and +you needn't either—unless you wish to?"</p> + +<p>"I shall not wish to."</p> + +<p>"I thought not! There's really nobody here you care about talking to +except me, is there? And there's nobody in the world I'd willingly waste +a word on if you were about. So there, that's settled!" she said with a +little breath of satisfaction. "It's a good thing you're old enough to +be my father, Stefan, or I suppose people would begin to talk about us. +Still," she added, "I'm glad you're not eighty!"</p> + +<p>Meeting her candid, clear, affectionate gaze, Nikolai managed to summon +up a smile of his own that was quite grandfatherly.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIX" id="CHAPTER_XLIX"></a>CHAPTER XLIX</h2> + + +<p>Joan was not the judge of human nature she fancied herself if she +believed that a disparity in age would render gossip innocuous. The +disparity was not as apparent as she believed. Nikolai was, in his dark, +impassive way, a singularly handsome man, and the stories of his early +ghetto life and later experiences made of him a romantic figure to more +eyes than Joan's. In vain the Jabberwocks rallied around her to a girl. +In vain Effie May, whose shrewd ears heard usually whatever was to be +heard, even in her retirement, casually spread abroad the story of Mr. +Nikolai's devotion to the first Mrs. Darcy.</p> + +<p>Joan's attitude was discouraging to her most loyal friends. She seemed +quite unaware that she was being defended and rallied around. It rather +relieved her when invitations began to dwindle in number; she was thus +saved the trouble of declining them. She entered into their growing +solitude <i>a deux</i> with the same single-mindedness she had brought to +bear upon her frivolous period, her domestic period, and her brief +career of publicity; being one of those natures which can do only one +thing at a time, and that very hard.</p> + +<p>When she thought about their relationship at all, it rather pleased her +to fancy that she was playing Mrs. Thrale to Nikolai's Dr. Johnson. +Unfortunately the people about her were for the most part unaware of +this classic relationship; and had they known of it would have doubtless +regarded it with one eye knowingly closed.</p> + +<p>Much of the town's attention fastened itself upon Archibald. Scandals +there had been before this, even in its upper circles; but they had +maintained hitherto a decent surreptitiousness, had veiled themselves +beneath a more or less transparent cover of secrecy, until some climax +occurred in the way of pistol-shot or divorce-proceeding. The <i>tertium +quid</i>, acknowledged and accepted, was new to the experience of +Louisville; and very interesting.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Stefan Nikolai, all unconscious of the stimulus he was +offering to general conversation, spent all of his free hours with Joan, +having long since faced and discounted the risk of it so far as he was +concerned. The risk Joan herself might run appeared to his experience +negligible. He had never even in his youth attracted women as less +intellectual men attract them.</p> + +<p>Doubtless even had he been aware of the town's talk it would not have +troubled him. For all his knowledge of humanity, he was no man of the +world, in the accepted sense of the term. He lived too much beyond it to +attach great importance to its opinion. In only one person he recognized +any right of criticism. That was Joan's husband, with whom long since he +had come to an understanding.</p> + +<p>It is a pity that neither Joan nor Joan's world ever came to know of +this understanding, which would have added to the affair a distinct +flavor.</p> + +<p>Mr. Nikolai had taken a small apartment, where Joan and her husband and +occasionally others dined with him, or dropped in for a glass of tea in +the Russian fashion and an hour of two of music afterwards. Nikolai, +true to the instinct of his race, never made even a temporary home +without music in it. He had, in addition to a piano, various instruments +collected in different lands, among them a balalaika upon which the +servant Sacha could sometimes be induced to play a shy accompaniment to +peasant ballads.</p> + +<p>But Archie had never come there without Joan; and so one day when he +dropped in alone, ostensibly to "hear the Rooshian pick his banjo," +Nikolai felt a surprise that he was careful not to show. His trained +eyes detected signs of distress in Archie which others, including his +wife, had failed to notice. The beaming smile did not conceal from +Nikolai a little anxious pucker between the brows, a nervous twitching +of the big freckled hands.</p> + +<p>The writer was not unused to being taken into the confidence of troubled +people. It was one of the things that compensated for the enforced +solitude of his life, such an occasional glimpse into the secret hearts +of his fellow-men. It is an odd fact that writers and philosophers and +even poets, all people who live necessarily a little apart from their +kind, are frequently chosen as confessors by those who feel the need of +confession.</p> + +<p>So Nikolai asked no questions, sure that a friendly silence and a good +cigar would produce results. Nor did he ring for Sacha and the "banjo." +At length Archie blurted out without preliminaries:</p> + +<p>"Joan isn't happy, Mr. Nikolai. I guess you've noticed that! She hasn't +been for a long while. I'm not sure she ever was.—I s'pose I was a fool +to think a man like me could make her happy."</p> + +<p>"It is a large order for any one human being to make another human being +happy, Blair."</p> + +<p>"But you could have!"</p> + +<p>Neither spoke for a few minutes. Nikolai made no pretense of not +understanding. Only a slight flush came momentarily into his face, and +left it paler by contrast. "I am not sure," he said at last. "But I +should have liked to try."</p> + +<p>"Of course! I knew that when you cabled us to wait till you came—But +Joan don't know it yet. Funny, isn't it, when she's so smart? She thinks +you feel toward her like a cross between a teacher and a fond +father.—'Father'—my eye! She don't catch you lookin' at her sometimes +the way I do!"</p> + +<p>"Do I—look at her?"</p> + +<p>Archie nodded expressively. "I suppose I understand, because I'm in love +myself. And she don't"—he swallowed hard—"because she isn't."</p> + +<p>"Not yet, perhaps," said the other slowly. "Give her time, my boy."</p> + +<p>"Time? I've given her time." Archie heaved a great sigh. "Now I mean to +give her something else. I mean to give her a chance. She never really +had a chance before, Mr. Nikolai. I—I kind of got her off her guard, +when she was takin' the count. It wasn't sporting of me."</p> + +<p>The other, moved, laid a hand on his knee. In moments of emotion the +foreign blood showed in such slight demonstrativeness. But Anglo-Saxon +Archie stiffened, and the hand was at once removed.</p> + +<p>"She's too fine for me, you see," he went on. "Too sort of delicate.—I +read somewhere that china vases and brass vases couldn't float down a +stream together without the china ones getting smashed (though why vases +would be floating down a stream anyway, <i>I</i> don't know!). But I'm brass, +you see, and she's china. I thought it might be all right after the +twinnies came. I still think it might have been, if they—" Again he +swallowed hard.</p> + +<p>Nikolai nodded.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Their hearts are wild<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As be the hearts of birds, till childer come."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But, my dear boy, you speak as if the twinnies had exhausted the +available supply!"</p> + +<p>Archie's eyes dropped. Then he lifted them again in a frank gaze. "I +almost lost her, sir. Do you think I'd put her through a thing like that +again? God!—her little frantic hands clutching at us! And her voice, +hoarse as a fierce animal's—!" He jumped up and crossed to a window, +where he stood with his back to Nikolai, his face working.</p> + +<p>After a moment the other followed, and this time Archie did not stiffen +under his touch.</p> + +<p>"So," said the Jew, "in your love you would deny her the woman's +privilege of suffering?"</p> + +<p>"Yes! Suffering on account of me—yes! Every time. It ain't fair, women +having to stand the whole business. If I could help, if I could bear one +single pain of it—But I can't."</p> + +<p>"No," said Nikolai, his lips twitching despite the sadness about them. +"No, I am afraid you can't. But—"</p> + +<p>"And it's not," interrupted Archie, reverting doggedly to his theme, "as +if I were the right man, you see!"</p> + +<p>They were silent again.</p> + +<p>"You are so afraid of losing her that you will not give her children," +mused Nikolai presently. "And yet if I understand you you are willing to +lose her—otherwise?"</p> + +<p>"To the right man," said Archie directly. "To you—Because I think you +are the right man. She's been more contented since you've been here than +I ever knew her to be. Of course you're twice her age, but that don't +count with brainy people. And you could give her everything I can't—not +just <i>things</i>; you know what I mean! Travel, education, all that. She's +in your class, sir, not mine.—Will you do it?"</p> + +<p>Nikolai looked rather bewildered. "Do what, Blair?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know. Be nice to her all you can, read poetry to her, get +her to care for you. Make love to her, if you want!—You can bet I +wouldn't say that to many men—" he laughed forlornly—"but you're +different, somehow. I can trust you."</p> + +<p>"Thank you." Nikolai's face lit with a very charming smile. "Yes, I +think you can trust me—And in case your scheme were successful, if I +should prove to be 'the right man'—what about you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, me? Why, I'd just naturally fade out of the landscape."</p> + +<p>"How do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"There're lots of ways. A cramp in swimming, or an accident when you're +cleaning a gun, or a dose of the wrong medicine—"</p> + +<p>Nikolai's brows met sharply. "You mean suicide?"</p> + +<p>"Sure! Why not? It's done every day, and done so the insurance companies +can't prove a thing, too."</p> + +<p>Nikolai rose and stood beside him. "You, who say that you love her," he +said sternly, "you who cannot bear that she should suffer even to obtain +happiness—you would condemn her to a lifetime of grief and remorse? You +might perhaps deceive others. Do you think you could deceive Joan? Happy +or not, you know that she cares for you, Blair!"</p> + +<p>The other's face softened. "Why, yes, I reckon she does, in a way. Once +when I had a bad cold and she was scared for fear it was going to run +into pneumonia she was awfully upset. I guess you're right," he mused. +"It wouldn't do for me to do that. Why, her father's death almost killed +her, and he was a mighty worthless old scamp, and she knew it, too! +Joan's a deeper feeler than you'd think—Say, I might do something to +make her get a divorce?" he suggested, brightening.</p> + +<p>"What, for instance?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, other women,"—he made a face of distaste. "I'd hate it—a low +woman certainly does get my goat! Still—"</p> + +<p>Nikolai smiled. "Do you think you could deceive Joan about that, either? +You might succeed in hurting her, perhaps; but she would not admit it. +Joan is proud."</p> + +<p>"Lord, don't I know it? Proud as Lucifer! No, I've got to think of +something to do that wouldn't be any reflection on her," he mused, "and +yet that she wouldn't stand for. Actionable, as the lawyers say—"</p> + +<p>Nikolai burst out laughing, and taking Archie by the shoulders shook him +to and fro.</p> + +<p>"My dear boy, I fear I cannot enter into this nefarious little plot of +yours. I am not going to make love to your wife—I should not know how! +Nor yet am I going to lure her from you with poetry and fine words. +But—" he added, sobering, "I think with you that she has not yet found +herself. There, perhaps, I can help. I can at least offer her my own +recipe for happiness."</p> + +<p>"You mean that formula thing?" said Archie doubtfully.</p> + +<p>"No formula, Blair. Simply—work."</p> + +<p>The other's face fell. "Joan never has been one of those idle society +girls you read about," he said, defensively. "Sewing, and housekeeping, +and civics, and suffrage, and going around giving advice to the +poor—She's tried 'em all, Mr. Nikolai."</p> + +<p>"And found them all other people's work, not hers.—But, Blair, I must +warn you," he added gravely, "that when she does find her <i>metier</i> you +are in far more danger of losing her to it than to—me, for instance."</p> + +<p>"No danger of losing what you haven't got," sighed Archie.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_L" id="CHAPTER_L"></a>CHAPTER L</h2> + + +<p>People who know life only on its surfaces were apt to pronounce Joan +Blair a rather hard young person. She would herself have admitted to a +certain hardness, secretly aware, however, that it was a trait she had +deliberately cultivated for protective purposes. Hers was one of the +unfortunate natures that are more attuned to the minor than the major +chords of life.</p> + +<p>Once in her childhood she had confessed to her mother, with a burst of +sobbing, that she never expected to be entirely happy because of all the +stray dogs running about the world, hungry and lonesome. As she grew +older she discovered that it is not only the stray dogs who go hungry +and lonesome.</p> + +<p>She often wondered impatiently why it was that every one with whom she +came into close contact seemed soon or late to develop a marked quality +of pathos: her futile father, the struggling Misses Darcy, gruff old +devoted Ellen, Effie May, Archie—and now more than all Stefan Nikolai. +Despite his renown, his wide experience, his phenomenal rise in life +from so handicapped a beginning, her friend seemed nevertheless to her a +rather tragic figure, belonging to nobody, product of two countries and +native of neither, without even a race to which he could claim complete +allegiance. For his mother had been a Christian girl of high birth, +outcast by her family because of her marriage with a Jew; who had been +in turn rejected by his own people because of her.</p> + +<p>Both had been killed in a <i>pogrom</i>, one of those appalling man-hunts +that still take place in the Russian pale in the name of Christianity; +and his father's sister, escaping to a land where there are no +<i>pogroms</i>, had brought the child Stefan with her. It must have been a +forlorn boyhood for a sensitive, gifted, half-alien lad, none too +welcome in a poor and growing Jewish family of the slums; working his +brilliant way through school and university, only to meet a crushing +rebuff in this land of the free and equal at the hands of a girl who was +afraid to marry him.</p> + +<p>Joan understood why her mother had taken the hurt and lonely youth into +her rare friendship. Aside from Nikolai's charm of companionship and her +gratitude to him, she felt it an inherited duty to "make it up" to him +for the sadness of his past. And where Joan gave, she gave +unstintingly....</p> + +<p>She did not pursue her headstrong course without receiving faint +inklings now and then as to its effect upon the community. The warnings +began with Ellen.</p> + +<p>"I ain't sayin' he's not a quiet, pleasant-spoken enough gentleman, as +free with his money as if he was a Christian—Most <i>too</i> free, if you +ast me! What's he want out of it all? After all, a Jew's a Jew."</p> + +<p>"Even if he happens to be a Unitarian?" (Nikolai, during his college +life, had chanced to adopt that creed.)</p> + +<p>"More 'n ever then," muttered Ellen darkly, "because his Jewness is all +bottled up in him, ready to burst out on you unexpected, like a +Jack-in-the-Box—You needn't laugh, Joie—you kin see it all in that eye +of his. The rest of him don't look so Jewy, but if ever I see a Sheenier +eye—! I don't hold with an eye that shows all it feels that way, +myself. Seems sort of shameless."</p> + +<p>"Indecent exposure of the eye," murmured Joan, "does not confine itself +to the Semitic race, Nellen. It seems common to all people who do a good +deal of thinking. One can't seem to mask the eye. The more that goes on +behind it, the more it reflects—As witness my own," she added +complacently.</p> + +<p>Her next warning came from a higher quarter. Happening to encounter Mrs. +Carmichael in the shops one day, that lady invited her to drive home in +her carriage, where she proceeded to catechise her with tongue and +lorgnon.</p> + +<p>"You are looking very charming, dear child—one wonders at not seeing +you about more? I hear your interesting friend is still in town, +however. Perhaps it is he who absorbs so much of your time."</p> + +<p>Joan admitted the imputation.</p> + +<p>"Oh, really? Your husband is very complaisant!—Still, Mr. Blair would +naturally be democratic in his point of view."</p> + +<p>"Democratic? I think I don't understand."</p> + +<p>The older lady shrugged; an Anglo-Saxon shrug, portentous in effect. +"Oh, these writing-people—it's so difficult to tell who they are, isn't +it? But Emily tells me you've always been singularly courageous."</p> + +<p>"It does not take a great deal of courage," said Joan, flushing, "to +continue my mother's friendship with the most brilliant man I know. +There even seem to be people who envy me the opportunity."</p> + +<p>(This shot told, Mrs. Carmichael having been one of the first and most +eager to entertain the visiting celebrity.)</p> + +<p>"Doubtless he is brilliant as a writer," she conceded. "That is his +profession. But even as a writer (I know nothing of him, of course, +otherwise!) do you consider him quite safe, my dear? Those plays, for +instance."</p> + +<p>"Have you read them?" asked Joan bluntly.</p> + +<p>"Why, not yet. I bought them, of course—one does. But one has so little +time for reading. I am told, however, that in one of them a child is +born practically on the stage. At least the characters converse about it +quite openly."</p> + +<p>"Shocking of them," murmured Joan. "Those things should be managed by +means of asterisks. But it's so hard to find actors who play asterisks +acceptably."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carmichael's lorgnon busied itself. "I should be sorry," remarked +its owner, "to think that any friend of my daughter's would care to +encourage indelicacy, whether in literature or—or in life."</p> + +<p>"Dear me, yes!—life is indelicate enough anyway, without our +encouragement, isn't it?" murmured Joan.</p> + +<p>She felt, perhaps justly, that she had come out of this encounter with +the honors of war. But Joan could ill afford to make enemies....</p> + +<p>The finish of Nikolai's book postponed itself from week to week. Spring +came, and early summer, that most witching of seasons in the middle +South, languid with the scent of magnolia-blossoms, gay with the bright +parasols and fragile muslins that flutter forth like butterflies at the +first touch of sun. With Nikolai to share it, the gray old town regained +something of its former glamour for Joan. She had many favorite spots to +show him—a quiet tree-arched street of patriarchal mansions in the +midst of warehouses, with all the charm and old-world dignity of a +London square; a certain secluded nook low on the bank of the slow, +yellow river, undiscovered save by an occasional working-girl and her +shirt-sleeved "gentleman-friend," with whom Nikolai conversed as +pleasantly as with old acquaintances. He had not the Major's elegant +distaste for the <i>canaille</i>.</p> + +<p>Through his trained eyes, Joan began to note again certain picturesque +touches which had charmed her when first she came to Louisville; a +primitive, two-wheeled cart bobbing along a crowded street, drawn by +mules hitched tandem-fashion, on one of which a dusky muleteer perched +sidewise, singing. "That might be Spain," said Nikolai. Or perhaps two +mulatto women, dressed in the extreme of fashion even to rouge and +face-veils, greeting each other with lifted, outflung hand—a gesture as +savage and typically African as if they were only a few weeks out of the +jungle, instead of a few generations—Joan found that with Nikolai it +was possible to do a good deal of traveling right at home.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the scandal of their association grew and spread; and at last +Emily, distressed at the magnitude of the storm of which her friend was +the center, decided to interfere. Not with words, however. Long social +experience had given her tact, if not wisdom.</p> + +<p>Thereafter it began to be noticed that Mrs. Blair and her distinguished +friend were not to be seen so often alone together. There was usually a +third on their expeditions, and frequently a fourth, whenever Archie +could be pressed into service.</p> + +<p>"Now that I've got some one to talk to myself, I don't feel so in the +way," he confessed naïvely.</p> + +<p>Emily formed a habit of dropping in at the Blairs' in the early +afternoon (just at the finish of writing hours), so that she had +naturally to be included in any plans that were afoot.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what's come over you, dear," remarked Joan once, half +laughing. "You're positively rushing me nowadays!—or is it Nikolai? I +begin to suspect you of designs upon Stefan."</p> + +<p>"And why not? He's perfectly eligible. We old maids have to keep a +weather eye out, you know—But how do you know it isn't Archie I'm +pursuing?" asked Emily calmly. "I appreciated him long before you did, +you know."</p> + +<p>"Emmy, Emmy, such indelicacy!" sighed Joan. "And him a married party, +too! What would your mother say?"</p> + +<p>"I'm feeding her Shaw lately in broken doses. She's prepared for almost +anything—You don't really mind my trailing you about this way, do you, +Joan?" she asked, sobering. "I love hearing you two talk. Am I in the +way, if I just keep quiet as a mouse?"</p> + +<p>"Mind? Of course not!" Joan kissed her. "You and Stefan are my two +dearest friends, and I <i>love</i> to have you friends with each other. +Besides, he says you have an 'interesting mind,' my dear. Welcome to our +city!"</p> + +<p>So Emily continued to make a courageous third in their walks and talks +and studies; accepted by Nikolai with his usual courteous friendliness, +and by the gossips with feelings which were not unmixed.</p> + +<p>"It's the husband's doings—he's awake at last!" declared one faction.</p> + +<p>"Men are so fickle. He's had a good deal of her—and Emily Carmichael is +looking particularly well this year. Poor Joan!" murmured the other +faction, composed of her more intimate acquaintances.</p> + +<p>Joan's feelings on the matter were also not unmixed. She loved Emily; +her presence was always a pleasure; she had assuredly nothing to discuss +with Nikolai that could not be discussed before so devoted an audience. +And yet—</p> + +<p>Stefan came to take the other girl's company so much for granted that +one evening, when Joan suggested a row up the river for their next day's +outing, it was natural enough for him to say, "That sounds charming! and +I think Miss Carmichael will enjoy it, too."</p> + +<p>This innocent remark produced surprising results; as surprising to Joan +as to himself. She jumped to her feet. "Look here, Stefan! If you want +Emily so much, why don't you take her by yourself?" she cried, and +bursting into tears she fled from the room.</p> + +<p>Nikolai stared blankly at Archie.</p> + +<p>"Will you tell me <i>what</i> I have said?"</p> + +<p>For once the other was the first to understand.</p> + +<p>"Don't you see?" he replied with his patient smile (and there is nothing +sadder to see in life than patience on the face of a young man). "It's +come about just as I thought it would, Mr. Nikolai. She's—she's jealous +of you. That's all."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>That night Stefan Nikolai, usually very regular in habit, sat so late by +his open window that the servant Sacha emerged at intervals to +investigate.</p> + +<p>"Is Excellency ill, that he neither sleeps nor reads?"</p> + +<p>"Not ill, Sacha. Go to bed."</p> + +<p>There was a lilac-tree blooming below the window, and the scent of the +young summer came in to him, flooding his heart, his senses—</p> + +<p>The servant appeared again.</p> + +<p>"Has Excellency sadness?"</p> + +<p>"Not sadness, Sacha. I think—it is happiness."</p> + +<p>"And yet he sighs?"</p> + +<p>Nikolai stirred, and got to his feet.</p> + +<p>"That is because our wandering begins again. The book is done. In a few +days we go."</p> + +<p>The servant took an eager step toward him. "Not alone?"</p> + +<p>Nikolai started. He had forgotten, as so many forget, the watching eyes +of those who serve us. "Certainly, alone!" he said sharply. "Am I not +always alone?"</p> + +<p>Sacha's eyes dropped. "In my country," he suggested gently, "when we see +a woman which we need, we take her."</p> + +<p>The other smiled. The two had been through much together. "And if she +chances to belong to some one else?"</p> + +<p>"Then"—with an eloquent thrust of the hand—"we kill!" But seeing that +the hint was unlikely to bear fruit, he added dispiritedly, "Excellency +is not, however, a peasant. Sometimes to be a peasant is good."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LI" id="CHAPTER_LI"></a>CHAPTER LI</h2> + + +<p>The storm which burst in August, 1914, had the effect of blotting out +smaller storms into nothingness. It brought in its wake different things +to different natures: to some apprehension, sheer personal terror, to +others the quickening sense of high adventure, to others yet sick +disillusionment with a world that was still capable of such gigantic +folly.</p> + +<p>To Joan, in the dead blankness that followed the departure of her +friend, the great war seemed strangely like a godsend. It was as if she +had cried in desperation to Providence. "What next?" and Providence had +answered, "This!"</p> + +<p>Perhaps she was not the only woman to whom the sudden extraneous demand +for all that was in her came as a godsend.</p> + +<p>She flung herself head, hand, and heart, into the organization of relief +work. As the Germans pursued their incredible way through Belgium, it +seemed to her that every frantic mother, every maimed child, every +desperate father, the very roofless houses and ruined orchards, cried +aloud upon her, Joan Blair, for help. She could not understand why +others did not seem to hear the cry, how those about her could pursue +the usual course of life unheeding—Joan was one of the first Americans +to declare war upon Germany.</p> + +<p>But those about her heard better than she realized. Gradually as the +change came, it came. Hers was not the only blood in the old border +State to thrill to the call of drums. And as in the earlier days, while +the men got down their firearms to clean them, the women rolled up their +sleeves and settled down to work.</p> + +<p>Under the impetus of Joan and others like her, Bridge quickly gave way +to bandage-making, the click of unaccustomed needles drowned the chatter +of clubrooms and tea-table, and the Jabberwocks in a body abandoned the +pursuit of culture for a course in hospital assistance. "So that we +shall be ready by the time our own boys need us," explained Joan.</p> + +<p>"But, Mrs. Blair, you ought to curb those firebrand sentiments of +yours!" protested Judge Carmichael to her after one of her public +utterances. "It is enjoined upon us Americans to be strictly neutral."</p> + +<p>"Neutral?" cried the daughter of Richard Darcy. "Neutral? Have you ever +seen a pit-terrier jump on a respectable little poodle-dog out in the +front yard protecting his household—and were you able to remain +<i>neutral</i>? I know my country better than that!"</p> + +<p>In keeping up with Joan's new activities, the town quite forgot to look +at her askance.</p> + +<p>Nikolai, too, was making of the war a personal matter. He wrote that he, +with other writers in New York, was financing a hospital unit with which +he intended to go to France in any capacity where he would be useful. He +had been in his youth, among other things, a student of medicine.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it fine, Archie?" she cried, thrilling to this letter. "Oh, if we +could only do something ourselves! I'd like to send him a contribution +for his unit, anyway. May I?"</p> + +<p>Archie hesitated. "How much, dear?"</p> + +<p>Joan flushed. It was the first time he had failed to give her without +question whatever she asked of him.</p> + +<p>"Sorry to have to ask," she said, rather stiffly. "But I've given the +last cent I had to the Red Cross. Could you spare me fifty dollars, say, +and take it out of my next allowance?"</p> + +<p>Archie silently got out his check-book.</p> + +<p>It troubled her to notice in him something almost like apathy toward the +war. The startling headlines, the growing report of horrors, even the +eleventh-hour miracle of that stand upon the Marne, moved him to no more +than a preoccupied attention. He appeared to concern himself far more +with the uncertain state of the stock-market, which he studied +assiduously. Joan could not accustom herself to the idea of an Archie +commercialized: interesting himself at such a crisis in the world's +history merely with money.</p> + +<p>An explanation at last dawned upon her. "My dear," she accused him one +day, "I believe you've been speculating!"</p> + +<p>"Who—me? Oh, every man speculates, sweetheart. Business itself is a +good deal of a speculation nowadays. Nothing to worry your precious head +about, though."</p> + +<p>"Would you like me to economize, Archie, more than I usually do?" she +asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no. You're never extravagant. A little more or less can't matter."</p> + +<p>Preoccupied though he seemed, he was never too preoccupied to show her +the special consideration and gentleness she had noticed ever since +Nikolai left.</p> + +<p>"As if he were trying to comfort me!" she thought uneasily. Her queer +outburst of nerves with Stefan was something she never allowed herself +to think of. She did not quite understand it; and Joan dreaded things +she could not understand.</p> + +<p>Archie seemed to be developing nerves himself of late. When the doorbell +or telephone rang suddenly, he jumped as if he had been touched; and he +went to his office almost every evening, coming home late and very +tired.</p> + +<p>"You're working too hard, old boy," protested Joan. "I'll be glad when +the treasurer of your company feels well enough to come back from +Saranac and take his old job again."</p> + +<p>"He's back now. I expect to turn the books over to him in a few days."</p> + +<p>"Good! I'm glad of it."</p> + +<p>"Are you?" asked Archie, rather queerly.</p> + +<p>"Of course!—though it means less salary, doesn't it? What do we care? +We had enough before. You know, dear, money simply means <i>nothing</i> to +me, so long as the bills are paid."</p> + +<p>"I know," he said soberly.</p> + +<p>Perhaps if she had been less obsessed with the war, Joan might have been +better prepared for what was coming....</p> + +<p>One day, on her way home from the Red Cross rooms, she bought herself an +early edition of an evening paper, and was looking over the headlines +when she came across the following:</p> + +<h4>SHORTAGE DISCOVERED</h4> + +<h4>BOOKS OF MOORE AND COMPANY IN HANDS OF EXPERT</h4> + +<p>Farther down, aghast, incredulous, she read the name of her husband.</p> + +<p>When she reached home, he was already there. Johnny Carmichael and Ellen +were with him, both talking at once. They stopped as Joan came bursting +in.</p> + +<p>"Archie! This can't be <i>true</i>?"</p> + +<p>He had risen to go to her. Now he sank back in his chair, nodding.</p> + +<p>"I been tellin' him he's got to git out while the gittin's good," +muttered Ellen Neal, her language consorting oddly with the tense fear +in her face. "Here's plenty of money"—she held out a battered +pocket-book. "He can hop on the L. & N. train as it passes Fourth +Street. They ain't a minute to waste! The main thing's to git him away +before they—take him!"</p> + +<p>"She's right!" insisted Johnny Carmichael, stuttering with excitement. +"Once he's out of the way, my father'll get everything fixed. He's +closeted with Moore now. We've stopped that beastly article in the +paper—lots of people won't have seen the first edition. Father's taken +on the case—Mrs. Blair, you've got to make Archie <i>wake up</i>!"</p> + +<p>But Joan could not speak.</p> + +<p>Archie rose to his feet again. He seemed invested with a new, quiet +dignity. He put a hand on each of their shoulders.</p> + +<p>"I'm not going to run, of course," he said. "Thank you just the same. +Now cut along, will you? I want to talk to my wife."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LII" id="CHAPTER_LII"></a>CHAPTER LII</h2> + + +<p>Always afterwards, in thinking of that nightmare time, Joan remembered +with a stab of remorse that when he held out his arms to her she had not +gone to them—He did not make the mistake again.</p> + +<p>In the hour they had together before others came, he made things as +plain to her as he could. The sum was not large as defalcations go. +Moore and Company would not suffer for it—they were a rich firm; and +later when he had served out his term he would be able to pay them back. +This he repeated over and over.</p> + +<p>The trouble had commenced with the purchase of the house. It was too +ambitious. Archie, struggle as he might, had begun shortly to fall +behind with the payments, and had borrowed more money on it to meet +them. (Joan recalled signing the papers, which meant nothing to her; +merely "business.") Somehow, what Archie made never went quite far +enough. Not through her fault!—this, too, he insisted upon again and +again. How was she to guess how things were, so long as her own and the +household allowances were paid to her regularly?</p> + +<p>"Oh, but why didn't you <i>tell</i> me?"</p> + +<p>"A fellow don't like to admit that he's bitten off more than he can +chew, till he's sure."</p> + +<p>So he had tried a little speculating, and won; a little more, and won +again. (It was at this time that he bought Joan her modest automobile.) +After that, the story is too trite to need repeating. There came the +depression of 1913, later the cataclysm of the war; and Archie with the +finances of Moore and Company at his disposal. He lost, heavily, and +borrowed to protect himself; recovered enough to replace his borrowings; +went in deeper—and was caught with no means of making good some +$15,000.</p> + +<p>"Our house?" suggested Joan, trembling.</p> + +<p>"Mortgaged up to the eaves. Our equity in it wouldn't be a drop in the +bucket."</p> + +<p>"What about your stock in that Building Association!"</p> + +<p>He laughed. "Swallowed up so long ago I'd forgotten I ever had any.... +No, dear, I'm done. I took a long chance, and I took it once too often. +Nothing for it but to serve out whatever term they give me, and then +come back and—show 'em." His set jaw quivered a little.</p> + +<p>"'Serve out'—Archie! You don't mean <i>jail</i>?"</p> + +<p>He nodded, still with his amazing quietness. "I want to. It's coming to +me. And I'm young yet. You'll see!... But that don't mean <i>you're</i> to be +mixed up in it," he added, slowly. "When I go to the Pen, that lets you +out, dear. You get your freedom. Nobody will expect you to—to stay +married to a criminal."</p> + +<p>He was watching her closely, and she stared back at him. He had proposed +the monstrous idea seemingly in all seriousness, as if it were one to +which he had given long consideration.</p> + +<p>"Don't talk that way!" she said, with sudden sternness. "Of course you +are not to go to jail. I'll fix that somehow—I'll get the money."</p> + +<p>But still she could not go to him, could not offer him any comfort. She +was too stunned. This did not seem to her Archie, this quiet stranger +who spoke so casually of penitentiaries and criminals and divorce.</p> + +<p>They were glad when people came to interrupt them.</p> + +<p>And people did come, in a steady stream. It seemed as if half the town +had read that hastily suppressed news-item, and were determined that +Archie Blair should not go to prison.</p> + +<p>"It's most worth while getting into trouble to see how many friends +you've got you never knew about!" he sighed.</p> + +<p>The rescuers began with Effie May, check-book in hand and panting with +distress, so upset that she had forgotten to rouge her face; and it +ended with Mr. Florsheimer of the Gents' Furnishing, who intimated that +if a couple of thou' at the usual rate of interest would be of any use +to Archie, they were his.</p> + +<p>The offer that perhaps touched him the most deeply came from the Misses +Darcy.</p> + +<p>"We happen to be at the moment temporarily embarrassed for funds," +explained Miss Iphigenia, at her stateliest, (and looking curiously like +her Cousin Richard). "But it will be a simple matter to arrange another +mortgage on our house. Dear papa did so frequently, I remember. And of +course in a—an accident of this sort—Why, my dear boy, that is what +houses are for!"</p> + +<p>But to all these suggestions Archie was able gratefully to explain that +his wife had already arranged matters. For as soon as she collected her +numbed faculties, she had telegraphed to Stefan Nikolai, and he had +replied within the hour: "Draw on me to any amount."</p> + +<p>"There," she remarked to the weeping Ellen. "That's the Jewness coming +out in him, just as you said it would!..."</p> + +<p>Ellen did all the weeping that was done in the Blair household during +this crisis. The shock seemed to have quite broken her, so that it was +the mistress who had to comfort the servant.</p> + +<p>"I'd ought to have known," she wailed, "with him lookin' so peakid and +all! But I thought it was—something else. Oh, why couldn't he have +<i>told</i> me? I could have kep' the bills down more, had pot-roasts instead +of fancy-cuts, and hearts—you know how tasty beef-hearts can be, Joan, +when I set my mind to 'em! 'T aint as if I wasn't an old hand at makin' +things do. But you always had such rich ways, just like your father. And +I let it fool me.... Oh, the poor boy, the poor, scairt, lonesome boy, +tryin' to go ahead all by himself!"</p> + +<p>Joan's heart ached for her husband, too, as much as a heart can ache +that seems turned into stone. She felt physically numb all over, except +in her brain, and that worked mercilessly as ever—merciless not only to +him but to herself. She did not hesitate to put the blame where much of +it belonged.</p> + +<p>"I have been utterly selfish, one of the vampires that sap a man's +strength, his ability, his very decency, and give nothing in return. +Yet—does any one but a fool yield to vampires?"</p> + +<p>She tried to make for him every excuse he had not made for himself.</p> + +<p>"It was all for me, to give me what he thought I wanted, the things my +friends have. He could not bear to deprive me of anything."</p> + +<p>Yet he had deprived her of the thing she valued most in life: her pride. +He had committed the sin unpardonable. He had, as the English put it, +"let her down." She, Joan Darcy, in whom pride was the dominant trait, +pride of race, of intellect, of character—she was the wife of a +defaulter, a common thief!</p> + +<p>Despite people's marked kindness and consideration toward her, she +fancied she knew what they were saying: "An extravagant wife. A woman +who neglected her home and her husband."</p> + +<p>But of the charge of extravagance at least she was able to acquit +herself. The iron of poverty had entered too early and too deep into her +soul for that. She knew that dressing, for instance, cost her far less +than it cost any woman of her acquaintance. She had always made taste +and skill take the place of money there, and in other ways. Much that +was unusual in her little house she had done herself, staining walls, +painting woodwork, covering furniture. Where her neighbors employed +several servants, she did very well with one; and if she left much of +her household management in Ellen's hands, it was because she knew them +to be more experienced than her own.</p> + +<p>"No," she told herself, puzzling the thing over, "we have simply cut our +coat according to other people's cloth—And how was I to know?"</p> + +<p>It is the cry of many a startled wife whose husband has tried to keep on +his shoulders the burden two should share: How was I to know?</p> + +<p>She was comforted to think that no tradespeople at least were suffering +from their catastrophe; she owed not a dollar in the world.... Here Joan +winced, recalling her determination that there should be no "Indians" in +the annals of the Blair family. Archie, in order that she might pay +bills promptly, had allowed her to pay them with other people's money!</p> + +<p>His own attitude was incredible to her. He seemed not particularly +ashamed, nor even down-cast; if anything, rather relieved that the +strain was over. The enormity of the thing he had done did not appear to +impress him. He was more like a man who has bet too heavily at the +races, but means to show himself a good loser. For the first time Joan +considered seriously the mystery surrounding his birth. Emily Carmichael +had been right—it was "brave" to marry a man of such doubtful +antecedents. Who knew what handicaps were his to fight, what heritage of +moral obliquity?</p> + +<p>There was after all a certain safety in good birth, she +thought—forgetting that traditions and fine breeding had not sufficed +to keep her own father from a slight moral obliquity, such as had +permitted him to speculate with trust-funds. (Of the Major's earlier +misadventure she never learned.)</p> + +<p>And then a sudden rush of reaction came over her. Archie—and moral +obliquity! It was as impossible to associate the two as to associate a +fine dog with treachery. He had simply, for her sake, chosen to take his +long chance and abide by the consequences. An act more gallant, more +blindly, foolishly, needlessly sacrificial, had never been laid upon the +altar of love. And yet—she could not forgive him for it.</p> + +<p>"It must be because I do not care for him," she told herself stonily; +and was glad in her heart that his children had not lived.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LIII" id="CHAPTER_LIII"></a>CHAPTER LIII</h2> + + +<p>But if she could not offer Archie the tenderness he craved, she gave him +at least all the other assistance in her power. Her executive ability +stood them both in good stead.</p> + +<p>It was she who interviewed Mr. Moore, far more successfully than Judge +Carmichael had done, persuading him not only to hush the matter up but +to retain Archie in his employ. "If I can afford to take another chance +on him, surely you can?" she insisted; an argument which the dazzled old +gentleman found quite unanswerable.</p> + +<p>Within a week she had procured an excellent tenant for the house, +furnished, with privilege of sale at a month's notice. She had disposed +of her little car at a good price, and placed Pegasus for the time being +in the Carmichael stable.</p> + +<p>"I can't sell her, of course, nor give her away—it would be like +selling or giving away Ellen Neal! But if you'll just ride her, Emily, +and play with her sometimes? She's used to a good deal of attention."</p> + +<p>"I'll probably spoil her to death," promised Emily, deeply touched by +this first sign of sentiment she had seen in her friend during that +tragic time.</p> + +<p>Joan moved about her pretty house, cleaning, packing, getting things in +order for the tenant, as calmly as if she were not leaving it forever. +Even in the nursery she was perfectly composed, until she came upon the +toys Ellen had hidden there. Then she locked the door for awhile, and +neither Emily nor Ellen dared go to her.</p> + +<p>"But what are we going to do ourselves?" moaned Ellen, rocking +helplessly to and fro in her kitchen. All her self-reliance had deserted +her. She was suddenly an old woman.</p> + +<p>"I haven't decided yet, dear. One thing at a time," replied her +mistress, steadily....</p> + +<p>But in the end it was Archie who decided.</p> + +<p>He had acquiesced without comment in all Joan's arrangements. Only once +had he protested. It was when she telegraphed Stefan Nikolai for the +money.</p> + +<p>"Not that, Joan—not that, <i>please</i>!" he said, with a quick flush. "I'd +rather go to the Pen than that—Really, the Pen will be quite a rest for +me," he added, piteously.</p> + +<p>"Nonsense!" she replied; and he said no more.</p> + +<p>But for all his acquiescence, he did not seem to be numbed by the thing, +as Joan was. Though she often heard him walking up and down his room at +night, and suffered for him, at times he appeared almost happy.</p> + +<p>"I can't get over how <i>good</i> people are!" he said once. "Think of Mr. +Moore being willing to take me back! Not as manager, of course—the boys +wouldn't be wanting to take orders from me yet awhile. Nor I couldn't +expect to handle money. But he sent for me, and said I was the best +salesman he'd ever had, and offered me the old job back on a commission +basis! Pretty nice, what?"</p> + +<p>"Shall you take it?" she asked, curiously. She herself could not have +faced disgrace with any such meekness.</p> + +<p>"Take it? Why, I jumped at the chance!"</p> + +<p>Joan flushed.</p> + +<p>"Archie," she said suddenly, "do you realize that there's a war going on +over there in Europe! Do you realize that there is need in France for +every able-bodied man that's got a life to spare?—Have you thought of +that?"</p> + +<p>She was startled by the change in his face. The veins stood out on his +forehead, and his hands clenched. "Have I thought of it? God, girl, what +else do you suppose I've been thinking about the past year? I'd give the +soul out of my body to slip away from this—this grab-bag, and get into +a good clean fight—Those damned baby-killers! Gosh!—fight? Just give +me a chance at that dachshund of a Kaiser with my two bare hands! +But"—he made the little gesture that she realized was becoming +characteristic of him—a gesture of renunciation—"I've got to stay here +now. There isn't any money in soldiering."</p> + +<p>Her flush deepened. "Money! I never want to hear the word again. Haven't +you had enough to do with just 'money,' Archie?"</p> + +<p>"Not on your life," he said doggedly. "I've got to make a heap of it +before I'm through. Fifteen thousand dollars!—That reminds me," he went +on in another tone. "You say they need able-bodied men over there—don't +they need women, too? D'you suppose your friend Nikolai could find +something for you to do in that unit of his?"</p> + +<p>He caught the sudden gleam in her eye.</p> + +<p>"That would please you, wouldn't it?" he said quietly. "Of course it +would mean hard work, dangerous work, too, perhaps—but it's a great +chance for you, for anybody! To sort of help make history.... Mr. +Nikolai was talkin' to us once about those two kinds of happiness, +Hüttengluck and Heldengluck—remember? Well, I don't believe you're the +sort to be satisfied with any Hüttengluck—nor I wouldn't want you to +be. Take your chance, Joan—and don't lose it." His voice shook a +little. "I'd like mighty well to have somebody of my name mixed up in +this war somehow!"</p> + +<p>She put her hand on his—almost her first demonstration of tenderness +since the shock came; but the gleam had already died out of her eyes.</p> + +<p>"That's dear of you, Archie—fine and generous. But if your place is +here, mine is, too. I am not going to desert you. How can you think such +a thing? I mean to be a better wife to you than I have been. We've got +to start again, and start right. I want to help you...."</p> + +<p>And then inexplicably, unbelievably, the worm turned. His nerves had +strained too far. He shook off her hand as if it burned him.</p> + +<p>"Help!" he said roughly. "Help? A hell of a lot of help <i>you</i> are! Going +around like a martyr, with a don't touch-me, how-dare-you look on your +face, as if I'd done the thing just to spite you! My God! A woman with +any guts to her—"</p> + +<p>"<i>Archie!</i>"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, that shocks you—such a fine lady as you are," He seemed to be +working himself up, like a woman in hysterics. "So grandly indifferent +to money, too!—just so's you've got enough of it. Who spent the money, +anyway?—tell me that! Was it me, who haven't bought myself so much as a +new pair of pants in three years?"</p> + +<p>She stared at him, mutely. "<i>So this</i>," she thought, "<i>is the real +man!</i>" His ears, his great, coarse hands—they meant something after +all.</p> + +<p>Her white look drove him into a further frenzy. "Oh, yes, glare at me, +if I'm good enough for you to glare at!—Let me tell you something—if +it's on my account you're staying, you needn't. That's all! It's a +<i>wife</i> a man wants at a time like this, not any marble image, not any +tragedy-queen! Not any noble character that watches him out of the +corner of her eye, and if he's real good—pats him on the hand! I've had +enough of that!—Go on with your friend Nikolai," he cried violently. +"Try him out for six months or a year, and if he suits, and you don't +want to come back here—by God, you needn't!"</p> + +<p>"Archie," she said, trembling in every limb, "I shall leave your house +to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Good!" he cried. "Good! And I'm going to beat you to it!"</p> + +<p>He strode to the kitchen door and flung it wide. "Come here, Ellen Neal, +and bear witness that I'm leaving this house first."</p> + +<p>The front door banged behind him....</p> + +<p>The two women stared at each other.</p> + +<p>"Was that—was that <i>Mr. Archie</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Joan, still trembling, "it was!—Come upstairs and help me +pack my trunk."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LIV" id="CHAPTER_LIV"></a>CHAPTER LIV</h2> + + +<p>There is little to be said here about Joan's experiences in France. The +story of those is better told in her own remarkable letters, which began +shortly to appear in certain magazines; and in the book that followed.</p> + +<p>Stefan Nikolai had found her shelter with a friend of his, Lady +Arbuthnot, a clever old Englishwoman whose long horse-face and charming +voice and odd combinations of tweed skirt and evening blouses were known +and loved in every institution of mercy about Paris. Under Lady +Arbuthnot's guidance Joan found use for not only her Red Cross training +but for everything else she had, whether by gift or acquirement. +Singing, story-telling, "play-acting," letter-writing, even dancing, all +seemed as important a part of her equipment as the regulation sewing, +bandage-making, and cookery. She tried an inexperienced hand at washing +dishes and scrubbing floors. She also tried her hand at mending +shattered nerves and even broken hearts; and at none of these things was +she entirely unsuccessful. There was a certain power of concentration in +Joan that made failure unlikely in whatever she undertook.</p> + +<p>It was a wonderful time to her. She never got nearer the trenches than +Paris; but there the trenches came to her, with all their horror, their +sordid hideousness, their sheer, soul-stirring grandeur. She saw +shattered men struggling back to life that they might offer it again, +with eagerness; she saw philanthropists living in comfort on money that +had been obtained to feed starving refugees; she saw girl-children, who +had been forced to bear German babies, loving those babies with a +passion of maternity piteously beyond their years. Priests labored side +by side with panders; women of the great world, such as Lady Arbuthnot, +shared bed and board and ceaseless effort with W. C. T. U. workers from +Kansas, with missionaries out of China, with ex-courtesans from the +Paris streets, with those most sheltered of all aristocrats, the women +of the upper French bourgeoisie.</p> + +<p>It was humanity with all barriers down, all contacts clean and clear. +And Louisville, Kentucky, seemed as far away and negligible as the +planet Earth may seem to possible dwellers on the moon.</p> + +<p>Sometimes she had word from there—not often, for Ellen Neal was no +letter-writer, and even Emily Carmichael's loyalty had been strained by +Joan's unexplained desertion of her husband in his trouble. Once her +cousin Miss Iphigenia Darcy wrote, and from her letter Joan gathered +some impression of the effect of her sudden departure from Louisville.</p> + +<blockquote><p>In my day girls were taught that their first duty was to the +<i>Home</i>, married or not. But I daresay this is a very +old-fashioned notion, and with all those poor, unfortunate +French needing help—Sister Euphie and Sister Virgie and I have +frequently discussed offering our services. It is strange to +have a war going on without any Darcys in it! (You haven't the +<i>name</i>, you see, although a <i>true Darcy</i> in every other +particular.) However, it does not seem the place for +<i>unmarried</i> ladies just now, with so many men lying about in +the hospitals not fully clothed, and those unfortunate Belgian +victims (you know what I mean)! As I tell everybody, "Advanced +young matrons like Joan are the ones really needed over there." +But you know how narrow people are, my dear! I sometimes think +our city is growing a little <i>provincial</i>.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Joan smiled and sighed over this communication; and then forgot it.</p> + +<p>From Archie she had no word, except an occasional line or two with the +money-order that came regularly on the first of each month, and was as +regularly returned. The magazine connections Stefan Nikolai had made for +her provided what money she needed, and she had not yet sufficiently +forgiven Archie to be willing to accept anything from him.</p> + +<p>At first she wrote to him, not so much from any sense of duty, as from +pity. She did not forget what had passed between them, she made no +attempt to ignore the fact that he had failed her utterly in every way. +But she no longer had time to brood upon her own affairs. In the vortex +of life where she now found herself, personal troubles seemed somehow to +disappear into the common whole. Constant association with others' +sorrow developed her quality of sympathy to an almost painful extent; +and though she knew that Ellen Neal was making Archie comfortable enough +in the old rooms on Poplar Street, his loneliness, his humble +acquiescence in disgrace, hurt like a bruise on her heart. So she wrote +to him, impersonally but kindly.</p> + +<p>Since he so rarely replied, however, her letters gradually ceased. +Evidently Archie, like many others, found it difficult to forgive where +he had wronged. Joan shrugged—a little gesture she had learned from +Nikolai—and dismissed her husband as much as possible from her mind.</p> + +<p>There was much else to occupy it: not only in the way of work but of +pleasure. Paris, even in her grief, did not forget the human necessity +for pleasure, nor did Stefan Nikolai. She saw rather less of him than +she had expected to, for he was frequently absent for weeks at a time on +unexplained journeys, about which Joan had learned to ask no questions. +But whether he was near her or not, she was always conscious of his +enveloping care, his devoted watchfulness. He gave her, too, many +friends besides Lady Arbuthnot.</p> + +<p>Once Sacha, always left on guard over Joan during these absences of +Nikolai's, betrayed the fact that his master had gone into Russia. Joan +taxed him with it when he returned.</p> + +<p>"Russia is not safe for you, Stefan!—you told me so yourself."</p> + +<p>"Surely you would not have me at such a time seek only places of +safety?" he smiled.</p> + +<p>"Why can't you stick to the hospital work you came over for, instead of +gallivanting about all over the place?" she demanded, with a petulance +that concealed anxiety.</p> + +<p>"One goes where one is useful," he replied quietly. "There are many who +know more about medicine than I, but few who know more about +Russia—except in Germany, perhaps! My countrymen are very susceptible +to the spoken word."</p> + +<p>It was his only explanation of his frequent disappearances; but Joan, +understanding that wars must be won not only on the battlefield, uttered +no more protests, and made the most of her friend when she had him.</p> + +<p>For the first time in her life, she came near to the innermost meaning +of the word happiness. It was not the placid content of her +"pasture-time," nor the feverish, half-guilty ecstasy which had come to +her for a brief hour through the unworthy medium of Eduard Desmond. It +wrapped her round warmly like the consciousness of some beloved +presence—which indeed it was, though Joan for once did not quite dare +to analyze the sensation. She only knew that here, among strangers +speaking a strange tongue, she was for the first time in her experience +utterly at home. And she was curiously at the top of her powers. In that +atmosphere, nothing seemed impossible of accomplishment. There was a +sense of personal possession and being possessed—"By Paris," she told +herself; but in her heart another name echoed.</p> + +<p>Unaware, the great experience, the thing for which she had blindly +groped, had come upon her; not with a sudden leap to which her nature +leaped in response, but with a slow, quiet, irresistibly gathering +force, like a great stream that bore her upon its breast, without +volition, without struggle, toward some bourne of which she had no +knowledge. And no fear.</p> + +<p>Joan might have said with Browning:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Let us be unashamed of soul ...<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is it in our control<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To love or not to love?"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It is always the body that suggests shame; and the body had ever been a +negligible part of Joan's make-up. She felt as independent of it now as +if she were already spirit, floating about in space—always with this +certainty of meeting there another spirit, however, and mingling with +it.</p> + +<p>This spiritual mingling was a matter she never discussed with +Nikolai—the only thing in the universe, perhaps, which they did not +discuss. Theirs was an understanding too close for words, and beyond +words.... But sometimes, when Joan remembered that she had once feared +love, believing it one of those things that are better done without, she +smiled to herself; an inner, brooding smile that gave the final touch of +the chisel to her features, and made her much sought by painters.</p> + +<p>Paris seemed more than usual that year the rendezvous for people who had +won distinction in the arts and sciences, and who came to render their +patron city in her hour of need what assistance was in their power. +Among these people Nikolai was made welcome with an eagerness, and even +a deference, which delighted Joan, and a little surprised her; for his +simplicity made it easy to forget that he belonged among famous folk as +a matter of right.</p> + +<p>On his account, perhaps a little on her own as well, Joan also was +welcomed by them. She was not at all abashed by the company of +greatness, having inherited from Richard Darcy the naïve conviction that +the best was good enough for her; and moreover she found among them the +keen power of enjoyment that invariably accompanies high mental +development. She had long since suspected, and now proved, that only +thinking people know how to play.</p> + +<p>It was a great relief to her, just then, to be with strangers who +accepted her entirely at face-value, with neither curiosity nor demand. +An unquestioning, simple freedom prevailed in these upper reaches which +Joan fancied might be dangerous enough (unless it had the effect of +putting people, as it were, on honor). Nobody enquired whether she had a +husband, for instance, or where he was. It seemed quite sufficient that +she was the young friend of Stefan Nikolai; "<i>Spiritosa e simpatica</i>," +as a certain great Italian tragedienne pronounced her. Their relations +were taken as a matter of course. The two were always included together +in whatever plans were afoot, and Joan noticed other such companionships +among them which passed equally unquestioned. She was nominally under +the care of Lady Arbuthnot; but that widely experienced noblewoman +displayed a carelessness of chaperonage that would have caused hair to +rise on the head of, say, Mrs. Carmichael.</p> + +<p>Joan was at perfect liberty to spend with her friend every hour that +either could spare from the day's duties, and did so. "Why not?" +appeared to be the attitude of a company which concerns itself more with +matters of the spirit than of the flesh....</p> + +<p>In Louisville speculation was once more rife and lurid, sharing interest +only with the war headlines and with Joan Blair's latest letter to the +magazines.</p> + +<p>"We appear to have been nourishing Genius in our bosom unawares!" +remarked the Jabberwocks to each other; not altogether pleased, as is +the immemorial way of friendship.</p> + +<p>"I don't know why you were unaware," commented Emily Carmichael, +quietly. "She has always shown every earmark of genius, even to +neglecting the best husband that ever lived!"</p> + +<p>The Jabberwocks exchanged surprised and meaningful glances.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LV" id="CHAPTER_LV"></a>CHAPTER LV</h2> + + +<p>Into the busy abstraction of Joan's Paris life came presently one of her +step-mother's rare letters. It was a round, childish, yet curiously firm +scrawl written on lavender paper (Effie May having abandoned pink +effects in honor of her widowhood), which for some reason brought home +to Joan her father's little city so clearly that she could almost smell +it; a distinctive summer smell compounded of hot asphalt, blossoming +ailanthus trees, and a suggestion of the glue-factory.</p> + +<blockquote><p>Folks here are making bets as to whether you ever mean to come +back again,</p></blockquote> + +<p>(wrote Effie May).</p> + +<blockquote><p>And why should you? is what I say. I keep thinking how pleased +Major would be to have you hobnobbing with lady earls and +famous characters and high life generally. It's just where you +belong, and so did he.</p> + +<p>Archie comes to see me real often, and he don't look so poorly +as he did at first. He's got him up a regiment, mostly Y. M. C. +A. fellows and a few old boys with stummicks and bald heads, +and I hear they drill real cute. He goes horseback riding a +good deal with the Carmichael girl, too, and I guess it does +him good. Ellen says he seems more peckish for his meals.</p></blockquote> + +<p>(Here Joan laid down the letter, thoughtfully. "Emily!—Well, why not? +She always did like him. I'm glad," she mused. She certainly was not +going to begrudge her husband the freedom she asked for herself.)</p> + +<blockquote><p>Ellen comes in every day to look after things for me, now that +I'm laid up. She don't like me any better than she used to, and +I expect she just thinks it's a family duty, but I'm glad to +have her anyhow. I keep nigger help now, the white ones being +so hard to get, and I'm not the hand with them your father was. +I never saw any one get as much out of niggers as Major +could!—out of white folks, too, for that matter, couldn't he?</p> + +<p>Of course I'm not so sick as the doctors make out (they got to +earn the money somehow), but it's hard to sleep sitting up this +way, and sometimes at night I get to thinking. So I made a +will. I knew you'd never touch Calloway's money with a ten-foot +pole, but I thought maybe you wouldn't mind seeing it got spent +right. I want it to go to one of those shelters you told about +in the magazine, for little French girls with babies and no +husbands. Seems only fair, when I've had more than my share of +husbands and no kids.</p> + +<p>Paris seems awful far away, and I guess I better let you off +that promise you made me to see that I didn't get laid out with +no corset on. They probably couldn't get a corset on me now, +anyway, I'm that fleshy. Not that I'm ordering me a coffin for +anytime real soon, dearie! but sometimes at night a person gets +to thinking.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Joan was rather startled by this letter, and sent for Nikolai.</p> + +<p>"What do you make of it, Stefan? That part: 'It's hard to sleep sitting +up this way'—what does it mean?"</p> + +<p>"I am afraid," he said gravely, "it means something serious—Advanced +heart-disease, probably. A woman of her weight would be liable to it."</p> + +<p>Joan gave an exclamation of dismay. In that moment she discovered that +she not only did not dislike Effie May; she was fond of her. The thought +of never again seeing the vulgar, cheery, friendly soul was unexpectedly +distressing.</p> + +<p>"Poor woman!—all alone there with her 'nigger help!' and Ellen sourly +doing her duty—Or is it <i>my</i> duty?" She was not thinking entirely of +Effie May.... "Stefan"—her face blanched. "She was my father's wife. +She tried her best to be a mother to me. I owe her a good deal. Has the +time come to repay it? Does this mean—Oh, Stefan, do you think this +means I ought to go back? I've been so happy here, so useful! For the +first time in my life I have felt that I really 'belonged.' These people +who are doing things—"</p> + +<p>She gazed at him beseechingly. It gradually dawned upon her that what +she dreaded so to leave was not these people who were doing things, not +that larger, freer life to which Nikolai had given her the key; not even +the Spirit that met her Spirit there in space. It was Nikolai himself, +the man, the comrade—the lover.</p> + +<p>Her whole being seemed to rush out to meet the need that suddenly gazed +at her from Nikolai's eyes....</p> + +<p>"Stefan," she said very low, "<i>must</i> I go back?"</p> + +<p>For a moment he did not answer. Then he said, his voice not quite under +control "You expect me to decide that for you? My dear, you ask too +much."</p> + +<p>He took his hat and left; but Joan knew that he had decided.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>They walked up and down the <i>quai</i> for an hour or so before the gangway +was drawn in. Joan always afterwards remembered what they said, as one +recalls the least syllable of the dying. There was a sense of finality +about this parting, against which she struggled in vain.</p> + +<p>She filled her eyes with him as if she had never seen him before, and +would not again. She noted little physical details which had hitherto +escaped her—the fine cameo cutting of his features, the long, +sensitive, expressive hands, the air he shared with many Europeans of +belonging to an older, more finished race than her own. In his calm +impassivity there was a suggestion of Slavic fatalism, combined with the +tragic patience of the Jew. Only his eyes smoldered with an unquenchable +spark that flamed to hers.</p> + +<p>She knew that the Romance which had always eluded her was here at her +side, in the person of this perfect comrade, this shadowy, insistent +influence in her life which was about to withdraw into the shadows +again. Perhaps she understood, too, that Romance to remain Romance must +be elusive. Seized and held, it changes into something else. Yet she +tried to cling to it.</p> + +<p>"You will be right here waiting on this spot when I come back, won't +you, Stefan?—For I <i>will</i> come back," she exclaimed as he did not +answer. "Say that you know I will!"</p> + +<p>"I know that you will do whatever seems to you right."</p> + +<p>She made a mutinous face at him. "That's more than I know! I'm much more +likely to do whatever seems to me nice—Oh, Stefan, why will you persist +in believing in me always, no matter how badly I behave?" Lightly as she +spoke, her eyes were fixed on him, telling him consciously what her lips +could not utter.</p> + +<p>He answered at one of his usual tangents. "Do you not know that every +splinter of a genuine Cremona violin vibrates to the bow on as true a +tone as did the unbroken instrument?"</p> + +<p>"You mean—Mother," she said. "Oh, but I'm not all Cremona! I think +there's a good deal in me of the fiddle Nero played while Rome burned. +It's not <i>fair</i> to be expected to live up to a self-sacrificing mother! +If you don't, you have failed her; if you do, she gets the +credit—Besides, I'm needed here just as much as I am in Louisville. +More! Not only these poor people need me, but—you do, Stefan."</p> + +<p>She had brought it into the open at last, the one thing which they had +never yet discussed in their discussions of everything under the sun; +that eternal human question of Thou-and-I. She was a little frightened, +dreading yet eager for the answer.</p> + +<p>It was long in coming. Nikolai understood the crisis they had reached. +He knew that it was his to put out his hand and hold her, to keep +forever in his life this one gift of the gods he craved, the fulfilled +hope which had been his beacon through many a lonely year. Once before +because of a mistake in judgment he had lost her, to her own +unhappiness. There must be no more mistakes in judgment.</p> + +<p>But the habit of truth in thought and word was too great for him.</p> + +<p>"No," he said at last, "I do not need you."</p> + +<p>He saw her wince.</p> + +<p>"I do not need you," he repeated steadily, "and you do not need me, +Joan. People like us get on quite well alone. Better, perhaps. It is not +good for us to be too happy—Besides, what we already have of each other +cannot be affected by time or space. You know that? The rest—is +extraneous. Tell me this: Have you ever in any important moment of your +life forgotten me, have you ever failed to be conscious of my presence, +no matter what the distance between us?"</p> + +<p>She looked deep into the luminous eyes fixed upon hers.</p> + +<p>"Never, Stefan. Even in my unthinking school-days, even in that strange +time after I lost my babies and could not write to you, I have counted +upon you always. Everything that has come to me, good or bad, big or +little, I have shared with you in my thoughts. Only—I did not realize +it."</p> + +<p>"That," he said quietly, "is marriage. Your mother realized it. She knew +when you were only a child of the tie between us—But she and I thought +that I must keep away from you until the accident of time corrected +itself. You see we have been sent into this incarnation rather far +apart."</p> + +<p>"You kept away too long, Stefan!"</p> + +<p>"I know. But what does it matter?" He spoke half to himself, with his +little shrug. "This manifestation or the next—we shall not be apart +always."</p> + +<p>"No, no!" she cried, catching at his hand. "That is too ethereal, too +mystic for me—I can't bear it, Stefan! I want the people I love with me +<i>now</i>, in this 'manifestation,' as you call it, where I can talk with +them, and touch them, and hold on to them—I am not all spirit. I +thought I was, but—I'm not. Oh, my dear, aren't you human <i>at all</i>?"</p> + +<p>He did not reply; and Joan, looking at him through swimming tears, saw +that it was because he could not.</p> + +<p>She dropped his hand. "Forgive me!" she whispered. "I will try to climb +up to you—since you will not come down to me.... But you must help me."</p> + +<p>"I will help," said Nikolai.</p> + +<p>They spoke a little later of Archie, who had been all the while at the +back of their thoughts. Both knew it was to him she was returning, +rather than to her step-mother.</p> + +<p>"You expect too much of him, Joan—you always expect too much of people. +Try to take them as you find them. He is one of the many who think +better with their hearts than with their heads."</p> + +<p>She commented with a faint smile, "My step-mother once told me that +there was nothing in the world so dangerous as what she called +'bone-headedness.'"</p> + +<p>"Exactly!—especially to the bone-headed—Your Archie is no fool, +however. There are perhaps fewer convolutions in his gray matter than in +ours, that is all. He has made mistakes with his head, and will again. +But with his heart—never."</p> + +<p>"You are not condoning," she asked slowly, "what Archie has done?"</p> + +<p>He answered after a little pause, "To me there seems nothing +unforgivable, nothing utterly vicious, except selfishness. There is no +self in Archie Blair. Not enough self."</p> + +<p>Joan told him then reluctantly of something she had never before +mentioned: her final incredible scene with her husband. She was +curiously ashamed of that scene, as though it were she who had betrayed +herself, instead of Archie. "Should you not call that a mistake of the +heart?"</p> + +<p>But Nikolai did not appear to be particularly shocked by it. "I had no +idea," he commented, "that Blair was so good an actor."</p> + +<p>"An actor!—You think that scene was not genuine?"</p> + +<p>"I think, in fact I know, that your husband would hesitate to sacrifice +nothing to what he believed your happiness; even your respect—I love +that man," he said simply. "And so do you, Joan. Otherwise he would have +been powerless to hurt you."</p> + +<p>Her eyes widened. She asked, as so many before her have asked, "Is it +possible to love—two people at once?"</p> + +<p>"Two? A dozen—a hundred! Does a mother love two children at +once?—Surely that depends upon the stage of the soul's development."</p> + +<p>"But always one best," she said quite fiercely.</p> + +<p>"Always one best," he repeated....</p> + +<p>The parting had come. Staring at him desperately, she saw in his eyes a +depth of pain and loneliness that made her own for the moment +insignificant. So much of his life was done; so much of hers, after all, +only beginning.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear, my dear!" she cried in a sort of bewilderment. "What is it +all about? Is there a purpose somewhere in this muddle of things? Why do +you say it is not good for people like us to be happy, when others go to +the end of their days in calm security? I do not want any—wicked +things, Stefan! I only want to be with you always. To take care of you +if you are sick, to mend your clothes, and make you comfortable, +and—love you. I want us to grow old together, not alone. Oh, my dear, +all your life you have been alone; and I can't bear it!—What is the +good of this thing that has waked in me at last, if I am not to use it?"</p> + +<p>"You are," he said steadily. "Emotion to be safe must, <i>must</i> translate +itself into action."</p> + +<p>"But how, how? By doing for others, you are going to say—but it's such +a thankless task, Stefan! A red-blooded woman like me to take to +altruism, as some take to drugs!—Why must some of us live so intensely, +so consciously, only to be denied again and again the fulfilment that we +crave? Sinking our lives into those of lesser people, always of lesser +people!"</p> + +<p>He answered gently, "'<i>Car je suis le Cobzar.</i>'—It is time you +understood.... You know what a Cobzar is?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head; and he told her.</p> + +<p>"In the more remote Magyar villages, news of the world comes to the +people by means of a sort of minstrel who is called the Cobzar. He is to +them not only newsbringer, but historian and poet and philosopher as +well. He is treated with respect, they reward his singing with food and +wine and a place beside the fire, for it is an honor to be born a +Cobzar. But not always a happy honor, Joan. People do not listen to +singing that comes out of an empty heart. It is the Cobzar's duty to +tell them the story of themselves, and that is only the story of +himself, wrought into many forms. Their fears and joys, their failures +and their suffering and their hopes—he must be part of it all, and yet +apart, that he may not only understand but watch, remembering always his +mission to bring life to the knowledge of those who live."</p> + +<p>He quoted for her then some lines which Joan never forgot:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Aime-moi, parce que j'ai besoin de ton amour pour mes chansons,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Va t'en, parce que j'ai besoin de pleurer pour mes chansons,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Meurs, parce que j'ai besoin de chanter la mort pour mes chansons,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Car je suis le Cobzar."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The water widened between them....</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LVI" id="CHAPTER_LVI"></a>CHAPTER LVI</h2> + + +<p>All during her homeward journey Joan had the feeling that she was waking +slowly from a long dream; such a dream as ether gives, more vivid than +reality itself but impossible of recapture. As he came literally nearer, +Archie grew to be the dominant figure in her thoughts rather than +Nikolai, though Nikolai was always there; Archie under the new light her +friend's parting words had shed upon him. It mortified her to realize +that another, almost a stranger to him, should have read her husband +better than she did. It occurred to her, too, that with Nikolai she had +not left behind her all Romance. A man who was capable of such a +sacrifice as Archie Blair's could not be entirely commonplace. Her eyes +had been suddenly opened.</p> + +<p>Perhaps this was part of the help Nikolai had promised.</p> + +<p>Indeed, her sentiments toward her husband became rather puzzling, being +composed so far as she could decipher them of a desire to comfort him +for the loss of herself, combined with a desire to be comforted by him +for the loss of Stefan....</p> + +<p>Her fellow-travelers eyed Joan with more than the usual interest she +invariably excited among strangers; but to no avail. It was a time when +what few barriers exist on shipboard at best went down in the sharing of +a common peril, the menace of the submarine. Not so with Joan, however. +She seemed unaware of friendly advances or invidious criticism: wrapped +in a curious aloofness, from danger and from her fellowman alike. Nor +was it an aloofness that would pass.</p> + +<p>She had her great renunciation to make, and faced it; a renunciation +which took the most difficult form, of dedication. Loneliness was upon +her, not loneliness as she had known it before, a groping restlessness, +a dissatisfaction. There was nothing left to grope for. She knew quite +well now what she wanted, had always wanted, and might never have; but +she knew, too, that on this solitary road of life, the warm human clasp +of hands is something, the warm human touch of lips.... Thinking of +Archie as Nikolai thought of him, her heart seemed to be stretching, +literally expanding, with growing-pains; so that there might be room in +it for two—or for a dozen, a hundred, as he had promised.</p> + +<p>And presently she was able to return in spirit to the first night of her +marriage, when for a little interval of time she had lost Joan the +individual, and become simply the woman, whose mission is to give....</p> + +<p>She had thought so much of her husband that she was quite prepared to +find him waiting at the dock for her, yellow boots, Derby hat, and all. +But he was not there, nor yet at the station in Louisville, though she +had wired him from New York the date and hour of her coming.</p> + +<p>Only two of the Misses Darcy were there to meet her, in Effie May's +limousine, their manner nicely adjusted between melancholy, importance, +and the <i>empressement</i> due a distinguished relative returning from +foreign parts.</p> + +<p>"Yes, my dear, she is low, very low! Restoratives have to be +administered constantly," sighed Miss Virginia. "What a charming hat! +Paris, I suppose? I always have maintained that the French touch—So +that is why Sister Iphigenia is not here to meet you. We three take +turns at watching with her. Your husband comes every night, and Ellen +Neal makes herself useful, though why she should, with two nurses—No +expense spared, of course. So pleasant to be able to die in such luxury, +isn't it? She has been watching for you every day—seemed to be quite +certain you were coming, even before she had your cablegram."</p> + +<p>Joan interrupted this lugubrious chatter to ask the immediate +whereabouts of Archie. The sisters exchanged uneasy glances.</p> + +<p>"Cousin Effie May happened to mention that he was out riding this +afternoon. Doubtless he had made some engagement before your letter +came, or I am sure—" Miss Euphemia nudged her visibly into silence.</p> + +<p>"I see," said Joan, flushing a trifle....</p> + +<p>If Effie May was as "low" as reported, she showed little sign of it. She +welcomed Joan in her usual loud and cheery tones, magnificent in a new +lavender tea-gown, as pink-cheeked and carefully coiffed as ever. At her +elbow was a box of chocolates.</p> + +<p>"I knew that letter'd fetch you!" she chuckled. "Sort o' pitiful, wasn't +it? People were mighty surprised to hear you were coming back. But not +me. You're not so hard-shelled as you try to be, girlie!"</p> + +<p>Like the Misses Darcy, she displayed immediate interest in the Paris +hat.</p> + +<p>"Chick as it can be," she pronounced approvingly. "I certainly am glad +you're not high-brow enough yet to neglect your looks. No woman on earth +is smart enough to be able to wear a hat that don't become her."</p> + +<p>"There's a love of a hat in my trunk for you," laughed Joan, a weight +lifting from her heart. (She decided that her hasty and dangerous +journey had been a wild-goose chase so far as her step-mother was +concerned. This was not her idea of a death-bed interview.) "A black +crêpe poke with a white lining, Effie May. Paris still does her mourning +'chickly'—poor Paris!"</p> + +<p>The invalid's eye gleamed. "I might be trying it on when the doctor +comes.... Oh, yes, dearie, he's taking notice!" Her several chins +quivered with mirth. "But nothing doing. My heart's in the grave with +Major—And Calloway," she added, dreamily. "I been thinking about the +two of 'em so much lately that I declare I get 'em sort of mixed in my +mind!"</p> + +<p>She made Joan sit down beside her and tell her at once all about Paris, +and how many noblewomen she had met, and what they wore, and whether it +was true that Frenchmen took more notice of married women, even of +middleaged ones than of girls.</p> + +<p>"Paris is the burg for me!" she sighed.</p> + +<p>But in the midst of Joan's liveliest recital, her head dropped suddenly +forward and she fell asleep. It was the other's first intimation that +she had not come after all upon a wild goose chase.</p> + +<p>She sat for a moment looking at this woman who had tried to be a mother +to her, with her absurd golden head and beringed, puffy hands. Then, +following an impulse rare with her, she stooped and kissed the painted +cheek very tenderly. It was a pity that Effie May did not know.</p> + +<p>She slipped away to the telephone and called up the Carmichael house. +The maid told her that Miss Emily was at home.</p> + +<p>("So <i>she's</i> not out riding with him!" thought Joan.)</p> + +<p>Emily appeared politely surprised by her friend's arrival.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Archie tells me how ill your step-mother is. I am so sorry! You +say you will be here some time before you go back? I shall hope to see +you, then."</p> + +<p>"I hope you may," replied Joan even more politely, "but unfortunately I +shall be very busy.... Look here, Emily Carmichael, what's the matter +with you anyway? Come right over here and explain."</p> + +<p>Emily came.</p> + +<p>When the two had had their talk out and parted, tear-stained but +reconciled, Joan went once more to the telephone and called up her +husband.</p> + +<p>His familiar voice over the wire gave her an unexpected thrill. She had +forgotten how big and warm it was, even when he sang out of tune.</p> + +<p>"Archie," she asked directly, "why weren't you at the station to meet +me?"</p> + +<p>He stammered out some rather breathless excuse.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know all about that—Emily told me that she often gets you to +exercise Pegasus for her when she hasn't time. But why to-day +particularly, when you knew I was coming?"</p> + +<p>His voice was under better control now. "Why, you see, I didn't think it +would look well for us to be seen together just now—"</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't look well!"</p> + +<p>"Why, no, Joan. You've got a pretty good case of abandonment—I left the +house first, you know—but if we were to be seen together the minute you +get home, sort of friendly-like, it might get to the ears of the Judge +and prejudice him. When the whole thing's settled, of course, then—"</p> + +<p>Joan gasped.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean," she interrupted, "by a case of abandonment?"</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't care to bring suit on any other grounds, would you!" he +asked anxiously. "The fact is I'm afraid you couldn't, Joan. There +<i>aren't</i> any other grounds."</p> + +<p>"Oh," she said blankly. "I understand.... Well, my dear, I'm sorry you +feel that you can't come and say at least hello to me—'sort of +friendly-like.'"</p> + +<p>"So am I," he answered, gently....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Joan wandered back to her step-mother's room, feeling queer and dazed. +She had never before realized that anything other than death might be +irremediable.</p> + +<p>During all her months in Paris she had not even contemplated the +possibility of divorcing Archie. She was blindly content with things as +they stood, and it had not occurred to her that Archie might be +otherwise, that he had seriously meant, for his own sake, perhaps, the +suggestion he had once made to her. She was so used to doing his +thinking for him.</p> + +<p>Divorce!—that refuge of the foolish, the frail, those so lacking in +pride as to be willing to confide their failures to the world!</p> + +<p>"It is so—so unnecessary," she protested aloud, wondering vaguely why +the phrase was familiar to her. Then with a start she recognized it as +one of Eduard Desmond's.</p> + +<p>The hot blood rushed into her face. Did they—Emily, Effie May, even +Archie himself—believe her capable of the sort of thing Eduard Desmond +meant? Dropping one husband to take on another—or perhaps taking on +another without dropping the first? Was this the interpretation that had +been put upon her life abroad, her precious companionship with +Nikolai?—She shivered. No wonder Archie had not cared to come to see +her!</p> + +<p>For once the thought of Nikolai was of no comfort to her. She put it +from her almost with horror. It seemed to her that their relationship +was irreparably smirched, degraded, by the touch of profane hands....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>She hoped that Effie May had awakened from her doze, so great was her +need just then of the shrewd, tolerant, entirely human counsel of her +step-mother.</p> + +<p>But Effie May had not awakened; nor did she wake again.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LVII" id="CHAPTER_LVII"></a>CHAPTER LVII</h2> + + +<p>The funeral did great credit to the Misses Darcys' experience in such +affairs. A crowded, beflowered church bore witness to the fact that +Darcy was still a name to be reckoned with in the community. Not only +the best people were there in quite sufficient numbers, but many of +those lesser folk whose duties bring them happily into touch with the +best people; milliners, modistes, clerks in the better shops, and so +forth.</p> + +<p>As Mr. Florsheimer of the Gents' Furnishing remarked to Miss Murphy of +the Silks: "Such a loss to trade, ain't she?"</p> + +<p>Among these humbler friends not a few genuine tears were shed, however, +for Effie May had scattered her kindness impartially.</p> + +<p>Joan, in solitary state as chief mourner, with the Misses Darcy sadly +rustling in the pew behind her, was conscious of many curious glances +turned her way. Perhaps her husband was the only person there whose eyes +never turned in her direction. She was glad of her heavy veil, through +which she might study him unobserved.</p> + +<p>He sat just opposite among the other pall-bearers, grave and quiet, with +the odd dignity still about him which had come at the time of his +disgrace. She noted new lines in his face, an unexpected touch of gray +in his boyish, curling hair. The ears, the freckles, the great, clumsy +hands were still much in evidence; but somehow Archie had lost forever +his slight touch of the ridiculous. Declining to run away from disgrace, +facing his music, humbly but unafraid, it occurred to Joan that her +husband was approaching rather nearly her own and her father's standard +of gentlehood.</p> + +<p>"Blessings brighten," she reminded herself, grimly, "as they take their +flight!..."</p> + +<p>She came presently under the soothing spell of the old cathedral, a +shabby, not very beautiful edifice left stranded in a neighborhood no +longer its own, but whose pews still bore the names of the town's first +citizens, gentlemen who had been her father's boyhood playmates, and +whose fathers had worshiped there with his father. Oddly enough, +considering how little time she had spent within its walls, the echoing +dimness of it gave Joan her first sense of home-coming. This old house +of God, that had witnessed so many ends and so many beginnings of human +endeavor, had gathered into itself the heart of a city.</p> + +<p>A warm heart, it was, thought Joan; despite those speculative glances +fixed upon her. She recalled people's kindness to Archie in his trouble, +their quick response to any call upon their sympathy, their willingness +to give every stranger his chance. She remembered their invincible +hospitality, whether in wealth or poverty; the ardor with which they +entered into the interest of the moment, be it work or play, their +generous admiration for any fellow-citizen who made a success in the +world. A warm heart, she thought, and a loyal one.</p> + +<p>She understood in that moment why it was that the people of this little +city rarely drifted too far away to come back again. Just as the human +body claims in the end its six feet of earth for a resting-place, so +must the human spirit claim its bit of the world for a resting-place, a +Neighborhood. The tragedy of a wandering life such as Nikolai's was, she +saw, in its detachment from common human interests, from a Neighborhood. +Better a tree, with its roots in friendly soil, as he had once said.</p> + +<p>Cast her out though it might, Joan knew that her Neighborhood was here, +here among her father's people....</p> + +<p>A trolley-car clanged past, and the challenge of the peanutman came +cheerfully in at the open door. "Pop-corn, Lady? Yere's your fine fraish +roasted peanuts, right off the hopper!"</p> + +<p>The little lads in the choir stirred restlessly to this voice of the +summer outside. "Lead, Kindly Light," they warbled in a piercing young +treble, with now and then the Bishop's robust tones added in a +hospitable effort to make the thing go.</p> + +<p>Joan's irrepressible fancy recalled the last occasion on which she had +heard this noble anthem. It was at the Country Club, where some +irreverent wag was playing it in rag-time; and Effie May had danced to +it merrily, Lightfoot Ef with her indulgent Major. Joan wondered whether +Lightfoot Ef might be remembering, too, and smiling perhaps in her +coffin....</p> + +<p>But out at the cemetery her queer sense of elation vanished. Here, in +the shadow of her father's monolith, with Mary's modest headstone on one +side, a yawning grave on the other, at her feet two mounds so small as +hardly to be noticed, the aloneness of the human soul suddenly smote her +with such force that she could not stand under it. Was she never to know +again that human touch of hands and of lips? Was her only neighborhood +after all to be this quiet city of the dead?</p> + +<p>She went quite dizzy and might have fallen, but for the quick arm that +supported her; whose in that bitter moment she neither knew nor cared. +But she was not surprised to find herself presently alone in a carriage +with Archie.</p> + +<p>"I guess I oughtn't to have done this," he apologized, when he saw that +she could listen to him. "I just didn't think—out there. I'll go as +soon as you feel better, dear. Where do you want the driver to take +you!"</p> + +<p>"Home," she said. It was no more than a whisper.</p> + +<p>"You mean to Mrs. Darcy's house? Won't that be pretty gloomy for you +just now? Better let him take you to your cousins'—or to Miss Emily's. +How would that be? I know she'd he mighty glad to have you."</p> + +<p>Joan gathered herself together for an effort. It seemed to her, faint as +she was, that much depended upon this moment. But for once her eloquence +failed her. She could only repeat that she wanted to go home.</p> + +<p>Archie understood her trembling better than her speech, perhaps. He, +too, began to tremble.</p> + +<p>"I—I haven't got any home now, Joan. Only the old attic-room in Poplar +Street—"</p> + +<p>She cried out, painfully, "Archie! don't you <i>want</i> me any more?..."</p> + +<p>In his arms at last, her face pressed roughly against the familiar +roughness of his coat, words returned to her. She quoted her husband's +sole adventure into poetry:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"A book of verses underneath the roof,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A cup of coffee and an egg, in troof,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Mrs Neal to cook it up for us—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ah, attic life were Paradise enoof."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Archibald did his faithful best to laugh; but the effort was not +successful.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>So it happened that they were received from a funeral as they had once +been from a wedding, into the portal of an ancient, friendly mansion +whose stairway still creaks to the tread of ghosts and broken people, +with now and then a happy footstep to remind it of its youth. And there +Ellen Neal, mounting stiffly and wearily with the aid of the curving +bannister, was hailed by a loud whisper from the floor above.</p> + +<p>"Hsst! Come on up and look who's here."</p> + +<p>A radiant Archie led her to his door, and exhibited the One and Only, +clad in his bathrobe, curled up asleep upon his bed.</p> + +<p>"Humph!" gulped Ellen through her tears. "I <i>knew</i> that woman'd manage +to fix things somehow!" Which was a final reluctant tribute to the force +of kindness that had been Effie May.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="TWO_YEARS_LATER" id="TWO_YEARS_LATER"></a>TWO YEARS LATER</h2> + + +<p>A distinguished, foreign-looking gentleman with pointed gray beard got +off an interurban car in the vicinity of Louisville, and stood gazing +about him uncertainly. It was not the suburban neighborhood he had +expected to find, but a distinctly rural one. Here and there smoke was +visible above the tree-tops, but the only house within sight was a small +farm-cottage of red brick, which had doubtless stood there among its +gnarled fruit-trees at a time when the turnpike that passed it was a +postroad leading from the metropolis of Middletown (now half a hundred +houses strung along the pike) to the little port of Louisville on the +Ohio.</p> + +<p>There was a big chimney at either end, in the picturesque but +impractical early fashion, and a bricked-up terrace across the front +overflowing with simple flowers: petunias, snapdragon, larkspur. Upon +the lawn grazed a rather stiff-kneed thoroughbred, apparently under +convoy of a pair of infants. One of these, the smaller, got about on all +fours with astonishing rapidity, and seemed imbued with the spirit of +investigation. The other, slightly larger, was extremely black as to +color and extremely capable as to manner.</p> + +<p>"Tek keer, you Steffum!" Mr. Nikolai heard this one admonish. "Don't you +go so near his mouf, you heah me? Dat hawss could snap you up jes' as +easy as nippin' off a dandelium!"</p> + +<p>The visitor leaned over the fence in sudden interest, "Can you tell me, +young person, whether Mrs. Blair lives here?"</p> + +<p>At sound of his voice the investigatory infant, in an excess of +hospitality, rose to its legs and teetered eagerly toward him, only to +come to earth at Mr. Nikolai's feet. Nothing daunted, however, it gazed +up at him from this lowly position with a mixture of Archie's grin and +the droll, blue, wistful twinkle of Joan.</p> + +<p>"Dar you goes, Steffum!" cried the guardian, in hot pursuit. "Dirtyin' +up anodder clean dress so's Miss Ellen gwinter whup me good—He's always +a-fallin' over on his face dataway," she complained, while maternally +repairing damages with the skirt of what appeared to be an only garment. +"I b'lieve he goes and does it a-purpose!"</p> + +<p>"To gain experience, perhaps?" suggested the visitor.</p> + +<p>"I reck'n," assented the other, doubtfully. "Yassuh, Mis' Blair she +<i>libs</i> heah, but she's playin' on de type-writer dis mawnin'. Will I run +an' tell her comp'ny is came?"</p> + +<p>"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed the gentleman. "Not if she is playing on a +typewriter."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Archie, <i>he</i> libs heah, too, when he ain't a trabelin' on de +railroad train," volunteered the black one, "He's out behine, makin' him +a little house to put a hawg in. Heah him?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Nikolai nodded. There was a good deal of intermittent hammering and +whistling going on in the background.</p> + +<p>"You need not announce me, thank you. Perhaps my namesake will lead me +to him?"</p> + +<p>He held out a forefinger to the younger Stefan, who examined it, found +it good, and clasped a trusting fist about it. So linked, the two moved +off at a pace suitable to experimental footsteps.</p> + +<p>In this slow progress they presently came upon a somewhat nondescript +figure at work in a potato-patch. It wore blue jeans overall trousers, +surmounted by what had once been a leghorn picture-hat, from which +straggled a lock or two of sparse gray hair.</p> + +<p>Mr. Nikolai stared at this figure for a puzzled moment; and then burst +out laughing.</p> + +<p>"Why, Ellen Neal! I did not recognize you as a farmerette."</p> + +<p>"Land sakes!" She sat down abruptly among the potato-plants, whether out +of surprise or for purposes of concealment it is impossible to state.</p> + +<p>But her welcome when it came was for once not grudging. Perhaps she +recalled a certain timely offer of help; or perhaps this graybeard, with +his slight, tired stoop and his lined eyes, no longer seemed to her a +menace to the sheepfold. Be that as it may, her greeting was not outdone +in warmth even by Archie's.</p> + +<p>"I've simply <i>got</i> to tell Joan!" cried Archie. "She'll never forgive me +if I don't interrupt her just this once."</p> + +<p>"Not when it is coming like that," forbade Nikolai, listening to the +rapid click of a typewriter from the house beyond. "Neither battle, +murder, nor sudden death must be allowed to interfere with a flow of +thought that is coming a hundred words to the minute."</p> + +<p>"Well, I suppose you know," conceded the husband, reluctantly—</p> + +<p>An hour later, however, Ellen took matters into her own hands. She +appeared at the kitchen door (dressed, Nikolai was flattered to observe, +in a costume of purple crêpe with Battenburg touches), and loudly rang a +dinner-bell.</p> + +<p>"That'll fetch her! Joan ain't ever too much up in the clouds to hear a +dinner-bell; and I don't mean to have my jelly-omelette kep' waitin' on +no flows of thought," she remarked.</p> + +<p>Joan came out to them, a little untidy as to dress and hair (why is it +that the Muse can never be pursued in perfect neatness?) and moving +vaguely, as if half in a dream. There was a faint vertical wrinkle +between her brows which was new to Nikolai, but her pallor had given +place to warm tan, and both face and figure showed a slight suggestion +of fullness, a little matronly poise that was more charming than her +Botticelli <i>maigre</i> had been.</p> + +<p>As she passed her son, she swooped down upon him and lifted him with a +fine free swing onto her shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Hi there, old Dirt-in-the-Face! Where's your Dada?"</p> + +<p>Mother and child made a memorable picture as they approached, the long +lifting lines of the woman's body, her laughing face upturned to the +boy, who straddled her shoulder unafraid of his high position, chuckling +and kicking fat legs as she tickled him.</p> + +<p>The two men who loved Joan exchanged a sympathetic glance. "Mine!" said +each in his heart; the one triumphantly, the other with the little shrug +that was habitual to him.</p> + +<p>Not until she was close upon them did she realize who waited for her +there beside Archie. She stopped short. Then, without a word, she put +down her child and went to Nikolai and kissed him.</p> + +<p>If that kiss, so impulsive and without self-consciousness, was like a +stab in Nikolai's heart, he did not show it. She had not dared to kiss +him when they parted.</p> + +<p>There came back to him in that moment an echo of a certain prophesy he +had once made to Archie: "I must warn you that when she does find her +<i>metier</i>, you are more in danger of losing her to it than to me."</p> + +<p>Was she lost to both of them, already?...</p> + +<p>"Oh, but Stefan, dear, how tired you look!" ("And how old!" her thought +finished.) "You've been working too hard over there!"</p> + +<p>"One does. It seems the least one can do."</p> + +<p>"Too much work and not enough exercise," pronounced Archie, casting a +semi-professional eye over him. "Nothing ages a man so quick as to let +his muscles sag on him—but you brainy people always forget you've got +muscles except in your heads. I'll have to make you hoe the garden and +put on the gloves with me now and then, like I do Joan."</p> + +<p>"No wonder she is able to hoist fat sons about as if they were +feathers!" commented Nikolai.</p> + +<p>It was a happy luncheon they had together, and a garrulous one. The +Blair family talked all at once, including the youngest, who had three +words at his command and liked to practice them. Ellen also joined +freely in the conversation as she waited upon them. Nikolai was the only +quiet one, seeming content to look and listen.</p> + +<p>He had to hear all about the finding of the Farm, as Archie called his +two acres and a cottage. When the reunited Blairs had been looking about +for a place they could afford to live in—"And raise a family," added +Archie happily—they had come across the little place, weed-grown and +deserted, and rented it for almost nothing.</p> + +<p>"The chickens and the garden alone practically pay the rent," boasted +Archie, "and this summer I'm going to set up a hog. Real money in hogs, +Mr. Nikolai! Of course the house is pretty old-timey and plain,"—he +indicated the low ceilings and deep-set, many-paned windows—"but Joan +likes old-timey things. She says this is a country cousin to that old +place I used to live in on Poplar Street. Says a house without any +ghosts in it is as uninteresting as a house without any books in it." +(Archie was always fond of quoting the sayings of his Joan.)</p> + +<p>"You do not miss people?" Nikolai asked her, recalling how easily the +young American had made her place in what is perhaps the most finished +society in the world.</p> + +<p>"I have no chance to. We have neighbors enough—nice country women who +exchange patterns and recipes and cuttings with me, and even a book now +and then. If I want another sort, it is easy enough to run into town—or +even on to New York, now that I've the excuse of publishers to be seen! +And lately the town has begun to come out to me. Not at first. Emily and +the others had a good deal to say about the folly of burying oneself in +the country. You see this is not Country Club or golf-course country. +But now I notice that they're glad enough to come whenever I ask +them—or even when I don't!—Oh, the peace of it, Stefan! At night you +can positively hear the silence."</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Amid the darkness that we feel is green,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>he said.</p> + +<p>She nodded. "And no formal callers to interrupt, and no ridiculous +competitions with Mrs. Websters—I think people are more themselves in +the country, somehow. Kentucky people, at any rate. Your Kentuckian does +not run quite true to type herded in masses."</p> + +<p>"Hear the wise authorine!" beamed Archie.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps that is true of all Anglo-Saxons," she went on, unheeding. +"They need to get their roots into the soil."</p> + +<p>"Not only of Anglo-Saxons, Joan—of Semitic people, of all people, I +think," said Nikolai. "Humanity began in a garden, if we may believe our +myths. And with all races the dream of the ultimate Paradise is a +garden."</p> + +<p>"Why don't you put some roots out yourself?" asked Archie, eagerly. +"There's a lot of good land about here for sale cheap. Why don't you buy +some and settle down near us?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, do!" urged Joan. "What a splendid idea!"</p> + +<p>He looked from one to the other, the slight flush that had risen to his +face dying away.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," he said quietly. "Thank you, my friends. Perhaps—some +day."</p> + +<p>Joan remembered that he had spoken once of his intention to settle down +near her and grow up with her children, "when he was old enough."</p> + +<p>Surely, she thought (quite unaware of any cruelty in her thought) he was +old enough now!</p> + +<p>Her eyes had been making their usual running commentary on the +conversation, quick blue flashes, grave or merry or reassuring, that +always spoke to Nikolai more clearly than her words. But presently he +noticed in them a return of the preoccupation, the vague dreaminess, +that had been about her when she first appeared.</p> + +<p>"Your mind is at that typewriter," he accused her suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Of course it is," complained Archie. "She'd be at the thing all day +long, if I didn't drag her out in the fields occasionally to work!"</p> + +<p>"Archie thinks writing is not work," she interpolated, "merely an +elegant way of passing a lady's leisure, like embroidery or +crocheting!—But I'm not always as bad as this, Stefan," she apologized. +"It's just that a crisis is on the way, and thoughts seem to come faster +than I can get them down.—Luckily for you I've got a public now to +spill them onto, instead of you!"</p> + +<p>"Do you find the public as responsive?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Does</i> she!" cried the proud husband. "Letters in every mail, and +requests for autographs—why, she's a public character! The other day in +a street-car—Tell him what happened the other day in the street-car, +Joan."</p> + +<p>She pulled his hair, laughing. "Ain't I the most wonder-fullest +boy?—Well, the other day in a street-car, Stefan, a perfectly strange +man came up to me and said, 'Aren't you the Mrs. Blair who writes? Say, +what business have <i>you</i> got knowing how scared a man is of his grown +son? You're only a girl.'"</p> + +<p>"I congratulate you," said Nikolai. "Yes, that is response. Taking the +world into your circle of intimates—that is the thing that makes the +game worth while for people like you and me."</p> + +<p>"Don't include me with yourself," she protested in quick deprecation. +"I'm not and never shall be 'literary.' Human nature is all I'm after, +Stefan. Villains who won't stay villains; heroes with fatal flaws of +character; good, fine, noble natures who spread havoc all about +'em—that's the sort of thing I want to do; never 'literature'!"</p> + +<p>He smiled, nodding. "Spoken like a true Cobzar!—But at that rate you'll +find it difficult to escape literature, my dear." He rose to leave, +against protests. "No, no, I have no intention of sharing honors with a +Climax. Let me come back to-morrow, when the crisis is out of her +system. I know how that is!"</p> + +<p>"You always know how things are," murmured Joan gratefully, pressing his +hand....</p> + +<p>Archie walked with him to the car-station.</p> + +<p>"You think she's looking well, sir?" he asked as soon as they were out +of earshot.</p> + +<p>"Better than well, Blair. Content."</p> + +<p>The husband sighed with satisfaction. "I think so myself—though of +course it's the kid who's done that, not me—Mr. Nikolai, I've got to +talk to you on business. How big a hurry are you in for that money you +lent me?"</p> + +<p>"None at all," answered the other pleasantly. "I've accumulated a good +deal of moss for such a rolling-stone—a racial trait, perhaps! Take +your time. You've already paid me more than half, I think."</p> + +<p>"Joan's book did most of that, not me," admitted Archie, flushing. +"Though of course I'm going to pay her back."</p> + +<p>"Don't," said the other.</p> + +<p>"<i>Don't!</i> Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Our only hold upon such as Joan is—our need of them."</p> + +<p>Archie ruminated upon this in silence. "I get you," he said at last. +"Let 'em think we're sort of helpless, like—like children, eh? But it's +pretty hard accepting money from a woman!"</p> + +<p>"Why? When we have consented to accept life itself from a woman—Where +there is love there is no debt, Blair!"</p> + +<p>"I guess that's right," said Archie slowly. "What's mine is hers of +course; and so what's hers is mine—But speaking of the war—"</p> + +<p>It happened that they had not been speaking of the war at all, though it +hung in the background of their talk, grim and menacing, as it hung in +the background of all talk just then.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Blair?"</p> + +<p>"We're getting into it at last, thank God! And as soon as we do, I'm +going."</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Nikolai.</p> + +<p>Archie turned to him eagerly. "You think I've got a right to go?"</p> + +<p>"So much of a right that I've come out here largely to see how I can +help you—Of course you know," he added after a moment's hesitation, +"that anything I have will go some day to my namesake Stefan?"</p> + +<p>"Say, that's great!" cried Archie, beaming. "That makes me mighty easy +about the future! And the present's all right, too. I'm pretty sure of +getting a commission, and Joan makes more money than I do now. The thing +that's been troubling me is wondering how <i>you'd</i> ever get paid back.... +I'm pretty tall for the trenches," he explained. "And I seem to get sort +of careless when I'm excited—the Irish coming out on me, I reckon. The +chances are against my coming back. And in that case all you'd get would +be—Joan."</p> + +<p>A silence fell.</p> + +<p>"And the kid, of course—He's a pretty nice little fellow," Archie added +tentatively. "I don't suppose he'd be much of a—drawback?"</p> + +<p>"On the contrary," said Nikolai. "I think he might be considered +interest on the investment!"</p> + +<p>Archie laughed with relief.</p> + +<p>"I tell you, it makes me feel pretty comfortable to know that whatever +happens to me they'll be safe! And to know that you'll be taking care of +her, sir. She needs a good deal of taking care of, too—though she don't +know it. Thinks she's as independent as a little pig on ice. But they're +none of 'em independent, Mr. Nikolai—take it from me! They've got to be +humored, and teased, and exercised, and petted—and the smarter they are +the more petting they need. This high-brow business seems to leave +people sort of lonesome in their hearts—you know what I mean?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Nikolai, "I know what you mean—I shall accept your legacy +gladly, Blair, if I am here to accept it. But—I am going to the war, +myself. Not into the trenches, no. Into Russia."</p> + +<p>Archie protested as Joan had. "But I thought Russia was not safe for +you!"</p> + +<p>"It is not. Nor for anybody else just now. There is something brewing +there. You will see. And I think perhaps I can do a little something for +both my countries, the new and the old. That is why I have come to +America; to arrange my affairs, and to—say good-by."</p> + +<p>"I get you," said Archie, simply, and held out his hand. His face had +fallen. "Gee, supposing neither of us comes back? What will she do +then?"</p> + +<p>Nikolai gravely smiled. "Listen!" he said.</p> + +<p>Through the hush of the still afternoon came to their ears, faint but +distinct, the steady clicking of a typewriter.</p> + +<p>"That is what she will do, my friend, with us or without. She has +graduated from you and me—from herself as well. She has turned from men +to Man; and of him the supply is inexhaustible."</p> + +<p>Archie sighed, a little jealously. "You gave her that! You've given her +almost everything she values, sir, haven't you?"</p> + +<p>"Not quite everything, Blair."</p> + +<p>Archie's eyes brightened. He remembered then the thing the other had not +given her: their boy.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It was a scene that etched itself upon Nikolai's memory as he stood +there waiting for his car, one of those pictures the heart carries with +it into far places, and forever; the pleasant, homely cottage among its +flowers and gnarled apple-trees, children's voices prattling about, the +smell of cooking pickle in the air, Archie's cheery, retreating whistle, +and dominating all the eager clicking of a typewriter.</p> + +<p>His eyes followed the broad shoulders of the younger man, swinging along +the road to the brisk, martial tread all young men have learned +latterly.... Nikolai's life had thrown him into contact with all phases +of the human problem, low and high. He knew how inextricably the two are +mingled. Heroism, self-sacrifice, he had found in the most unlikely +places, and thrilled to them as a fighting nature thrills to the drum. +It hurt him to realize that the finest heroism, the most exquisite +sacrifice, must always be hidden things, hidden often even from the eyes +of him who sacrifices. Archibald Blair, failure in all that the world +finds important, would have called himself undoubtedly a poor stick. +Only to the occasional eye did he loom a hero.</p> + +<p>Nikolai looked after him sadly, listening to the steady click of that +typewriter. At last he quoted to himself, with a shrug,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Meurs, parce que j'ai besoin de chanter la mort pour mes chansons."<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Between them, he knew, they would manage to serve Joan's needs to the +end.</p> + +<h3>THE END</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> "Die, for I have need to sing of death in my songs."</p></div> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Why Joan?, by Eleanor Mercein Kelly + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHY JOAN? *** + +***** This file should be named 34801-h.htm or 34801-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/8/0/34801/ + +Produced by David Garcia, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Why Joan? + +Author: Eleanor Mercein Kelly + +Release Date: December 31, 2010 [EBook #34801] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHY JOAN? *** + + + + +Produced by David Garcia, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) + + + + + + + + + + WHY JOAN? + + BY ELEANOR MERCEIN KELLY + + Author of "KILDARES OF STORM," etc. + + + NEW YORK + THE CENTURY CO. + 1919 + + Copyright, 1919, by + THE CENTURY CO. + + _Published, March, 1919_ + + TO + MRS. RICHARD W. KNOTT + friend and neighbor to many young + women such as JOAN, whom she + has helped to find the why of themselves; + and whose life principle may + be summed up in Virgil's phrase + + _Paulo majora canamus_-- + + (Let us sing of higher things.) + + + Aime-moi, parce que j'ai besoin de ton amour pour mes chansons, + Va t'en, parce que j'ai besoin de pleurer pour mes chansons, + Meurs, parce que j'ai besoin de chanter la mort pour mes chansons, + Car je suis le Cobzar. + + _Quoted by Pierre de Coulevain from source unknown._ + +Rough translation: + + Love me, because I have need of love for my songs, + Leave me, because I have need of tears for my songs, + Die, for I have need to sing of death in my songs, + For I am the Cobzar. + + +[Illustration] + + + + +FOREWORD + + +Some time since, the author had the temerity innocently to publish a +book ("Kildares of Storm"), which, like this one, employed for +background the country with which she happens to be most familiar, the +State of her adoption and of her affections. And great was the scandal +thereof. Neighbors insisted upon recognising themselves in it, to their +horror--or to their complacency, as the case might be. They also +recognized the house described; although if one heard with impartial +ear, the house appeared to possess as many different identities as +localities, and despite the fact that the author, in order to guard +against this very contingency, had taken many liberties with geography, +even to the extent of moving mountains--imagination being on occasion +almost as powerful as faith. + +That history may not repeat itself, the author now hastens to assert +that no self-respecting creative instinct, with the whole world of fancy +at command, would care to inhibit productivity by the limitations +imposed upon photography, invaluable as that science is in its +place--which is not fiction. Ours the happy privilege of, for the moment +at least, "shattering the world to bits and remolding it nearer to the +heart's desire." + +There is also among the craft an unwritten law against the holding up +for public inspection those people with whom one has broken bread, so to +speak; and as one is apt, in Kentucky, to have broken bread with all +one's acquaintance, neighbors, friends and enemies may alike consider +themselves safe from the present pen. If any think to recognize +themselves in this book, let them recognize themselves quite as readily +in the living people about them. For we are, after all, of one +substance, varying only with circumstance and the different stages of +development. And it is with these things only--with circumstance and the +stages of development, with truths rather than facts, with men and women +rather than personalities--that this author at least chooses to concern +herself. + +ELEANOR MERCEIN KELLY. + + + + +WHY JOAN? + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +Young Joan Darcy leaned back luxuriously upon a cushion offered by the +obsequious porter (servants were usually obsequious with Joan, though +she was not at all beautiful and rather too shabby to promise much in +the way of largesse), watching the world go by with a dreamy, detached, +yet oddly observant gaze that missed no detail of the landscape through +which she passed and registered it in her subconscious mind for future +reference. It was a convenient receptacle, her subconscious mind--a sort +of strongbox into which went many things valuable and valueless, to be +brought forth when occasion required, quite intact. She tucked away in +it now not only the rushing landscape but the various people about her +in the Pullman: a dapper person, probably a necktie drummer, who had for +some time been discreetly taking notice and whom it was her pleasure to +occasionally regard as if he were so much thin air; an elderly lady who +beamed wistfully whenever their eyes met, and who, Joan decided, would +presently summon up courage to inform her that a little daughter, had +she lived, would have been about Joan's age; also another girl, dressed +as Joan would have liked to be dressed herself, who cast occasional +glances of indifference in her direction, noting, it was to be hoped, +the affluent litter of magazines and papers that surrounded our heroine, +the fading bouquet tucked into her belt, and the expensive box of +chocolates which lay open upon her knee, exposing to the world at large +a masculine card on top. + +Joan discovered within herself a certain impersonal, appreciative +antagonism toward strange young women, such as knights may have felt who +met for combat upon the jousting field. Envy was the one tribute which +most assuaged her vanity. + +She would have liked to sample the box of candy--a parting tribute from +a family friend who had a most discriminating taste in chocolates--but +she feared that it would place her hopelessly in the class of +school-girls, from which she had just emerged, as world-wise, as +sophisticated, as completely finished a young person as ever a convent +turned loose upon the unsuspecting world. "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" +was her favorite novel; she had smoked her maiden cigarette--in fact, +two of them; and she no longer subscribed to the stork-and-baby myth, +which seemed to her puerile. + +She was still able, however, to savor keenly in advance the moment when +the Pullman would empty itself into the dining-car and she would be free +to approach her chocolates in the manner favored by true _bon vivants_: +i.e., by nibbling off one end, extracting the contents bit by creamy bit +with the head of a pin (preferably a large white-topped pin), and +finally crushing the emptied shell deliciously upon the tongue. +Conserved in this manner, one chocolate might be made to do the duty of +many chocolates, an advantage not to be despised where pocket-money is +limited to twenty-five cents a week. + +The moment was not yet, and reflecting sedately that self-control is +good exercise for the character, she gave herself over to the pleasures +of recollection. + +What a beautiful parting it had been! What floods of tears and kisses +and promises! Seven--no, eight--girls weeping around her while they +exchanged dramatic farewells; firm Sister Mary Joseph, the out-sister +who conveyed pupils to shops and trains and so forth, leading her aside +at the last moment to press upon her, heretic though she was, a tiny +medal of St. Joseph, known to bring good husbands to his adherents; two +youths from the near-by college (mere brothers of friends, but still +masculine); and, for _piece de resistance_, Stefan Nikolai, famous +though elderly, who had run over from China or Egypt or somewhere to see +her graduate. This was an attention Joan took quite for granted--he had +been a friend of her mother's, and distance seemed nothing to his habit +of life. But its effect upon her schoolmates, and even upon Sister Mary +Joseph, was gratifying in the extreme. With his dark, fine features, and +his foreign-cut clothes, he had not looked particularly elderly that +day. His eyes, Joan recalled, had always been peculiarly expressive, +like the eyes of a setter dog, which probably has nothing to express at +all; and she chuckled to recall how the out-sister's gaze had wandered +inadvertently toward the unconscious gentleman as she tendered her medal +of St. Joseph. + +Joan was fond of Mr. Nikolai, and grateful to him. She even read his +books, though she preferred his letters, which had a good deal in them +about herself. His presence at her graduation, his chocolates, the +little sea of papers with which he sought to beguile the tedium of her +journey, had all helped to comfort her for the absence of her father. He +was, she thought warmly, almost as good as a father anyway; and far more +generous! Everything nice she had was a gift from Stefan Nikolai. Her +lovely Chinese shawl, her carved jade ring (Joan wished secretly that +there had been a diamond in it somewhere), the odd piece of clear blue +aquamarine he had brought her for a graduation present, that just +matched her eyes; books too, in beautiful covers, and some old prints +that were anything but beautiful, and a white bear-skin for her room. +She would have liked to suggest to him that, in place of such costly +trifles, occasional dresses might be acceptable, of the sort that come +from Paris; also frilly things, hand-embroidered, which he would not +have to choose himself, of course--there being women clerks for the +purpose. She was a little surprised that he had not thought of it +himself, aware as he must be of the scarcity of such desirables in the +Darcy family. + +Still, one must not look a gift-horse in the mouth; and had he not been +such a lifelong friend as to be almost a relation, Joan would have +chafed a little, as it was, under her sense of obligation to Mr. +Nikolai. Her mother's daughter did not take kindly to a sense of +obligation. + +It was not he, however (ah, by no means he!) who had provided the +flowers which drooped at her belt. For one moment the absence of the +donor of these flowers had threatened to spoil the pleasure of her +parting; and then had arrived, breathless, a messenger and a note. Joan +was able philosophically to reflect that if the gentleman had come in +person she would never have had the note. And there is something +delightfully tangible and lasting about a love-letter--if, indeed, it +was a love-letter? + +That was one of Eduard Desmond's great gifts: elusiveness. + +She put her hand to her blouse and felt the responsive crackle therein; +and the words of the note danced before her eyes in the form of little +cupids, bearing garlands: + + My flowers must tell you what I dare not, dearest little girl + of my heart. You will understand why I cannot say good-by. + Truly, "To part is to die a little." Forgive me! EDUARD. + +Joan had done her thrilled best to understand, since it was expected of +her, but she felt rather puzzled. Was it that he feared his emotions at +parting might get beyond his control? Joan sighed. She could have borne +that. Or was it--here she frowned importantly--that his habits were +already resuming control of him, now that her hand was, so to speak, off +the rudder? + +Eduard Desmond, as all the Convent knew, was a man of the world, with a +past. He was also in his lighter moments an artist. The Convent was +rather vague in its mind as to the form of art he pursued; but that it +included habits was unfortunately certain, and his young niece Betty had +vouched personally for the authenticity of his past. It had had to do +with a married woman. The Convent frequently prayed for him; though +unknown to the nuns. + +Occasionally this distinguished-looking, fascinating, rather melancholy +young man came to take Betty and a few chosen friends to a matinee, out +of the kindness of his heart. Perhaps it was not pure kindness of heart +that had called to his special attention young Joan Darcy, with her +square chin, and straight black brows beneath which the eyes looked out +at you with an odd intensity; unless she smiled, when they danced like +blue water in the sun. She was not pretty, Joan, and boys rarely noticed +her, somewhat to her chagrin; but Eduard Desmond was no boy, and his +past perhaps had made him perceptive. The acquaintance between them +ripened to a degree unsuspected by the good sisters at the Convent, if +not by his family, who aided and abetted it, feeling that a young girl +might be rather good for Eduard. Doubtless she was. She entered into the +duty of "reforming" him with a conscientious thoroughness that might +have been trying to an artistic temperament, had he not got a good deal +of genuine interest out of the process himself; interest, and even more. +She had soft little confiding ways, like a friendly child's, combined +with the queerest flashes of cool understanding, anything but childlike, +which kept him rather in awe of her innocent vision. Indeed, that the +affair went no further than it did was due perhaps to Joan's perfectly +unconscious habit of withdrawing herself to see what was going on, of +being "not there when wanted," as Eduard put it to himself, annoyed. He +thought it deliberate, the reserve of the prude, or of the embryo +coquette; whereas it was really one of the crosses of Joan's life, +dreaded by her as the self-conscious dread attacks of shyness. + +So far she had come out of what might have been an illuminating +experience bearing only two small trophies of the sort girls love to +whisper about together in bed after dances when the lights are out; one +rather lingering kiss upon her slim, brown paw (which did not startle +her at all, but made her want to giggle); and now this love-letter--if +it was a love-letter. + +Again Joan sighed. She regretted with all her heart that queer aloofness +which came upon her in critical moments, making her notice that a man's +ears were put on wrong, or that her own finger-nails needed shining, +when she should have been surrendering her whole soul to emotion. Was it +always going to keep her from plumbing the depths of life? + +"Oh, but it shan't!" she insisted to herself. "I _will not_ be an +innocent bystander! Things must happen to me; they must. All kinds of +things!" + +It was the sort of challenge to which Fate is apt to give attentive ear. + +Presently, out of facts and recollections she slipped, as was her wont, +into a game of Pretend, which had been a sort of accompaniment to Joan +from her cradle; growing as she grew, changing as life changed its +aspect to her eyes. She was no longer plain little Joan Darcy, returning +from school in a shabby suit which she had outgrown, to a shabby home +which she had also somewhat outgrown. She was a glorified young person +of the singer or actress variety, returning from a career of conquest in +foreign parts, with her maid Fifine traveling second class in the coach +behind, as they do in all the better novels. Her father, not much +altered from real life except that there were no spots on his clothes +(the Major's manner being grand enough for any circumstances), would be +at the station with the victoria and pair--or perhaps the limousine--and +would murmur to the second footman, "Home, James"; and at the door of +the family mansion, a pillared, fan-lighted door (Joan's mind lingered +lovingly over architectural details even in her haste to reach the +people in the doorway) would be Ellen Neal first, dropping respectful +curtsies--quite a stretch, this, even for Joan's imagination!--and +beyond her, in a lovely tea-gown, all silk and lace and newness, would +stand her mother with outstretched arms, waiting.... + +Here Joan became suddenly aware that she was dropping large, hot tears +upon her precious chocolates--she who had sworn never, never to cry any +more in all her life, because tears are only useless things that make +the nose red! + +"But _why_ am I crying?" she demanded of herself, puzzled, still mazed +with her game of Pretend. + +It was because her mother would not be in that doorway, waiting; nor +anywhere ever again--unless there really is a Heaven. + +Joan sat there, too proud to bury her face in her hands or to search for +a handkerchief, intensely conscious that people were glancing her way, +praying wildly to all her gods to keep her from blubbering aloud; and +she looked so like a haughty infant in distress that the young man +opposite, he whom she had characterized as a necktie drummer, could not +long restrain active sympathy. + +"Pardon _me_," he said awkwardly, leaning toward her. "Are you in some +sort of trouble? Anything I can do?" + +Joan summoned all her scattered forces to meet this emergency in a +manner that would do credit to the precepts of Sister Mary Joseph. She +elevated her small red nose, and lifting her eyes to about the level of +his scarf-pin (a rather cheap scarf-pin) remarked: "You can go away. I +am telling myself sad stories of the death of kings." + +The necktie drummer retired, permanently, to the smoking-car. + +This victory cheered Joan into momentarily forgetting her mother. +Already an adventure to write to the girls! She wished that she had +looked a little farther up than the scarf-pin. + +Shortly the old lady whose daughter might have been Joan's age if she +had lived, invited Joan to be her guest in the dining-car, and was +repulsed, coldly and firmly. One hears such tales of wicked old harpies +on trains leading trustful girls into the most frightful predicaments! + +"No, thank you," said our heroine. "I never have much appetite on +trains." + +Soon the car was quite empty, and Joan, mopping the last of the tears +from her eyes, selected the largest of the chocolates and drew from some +recess of her person a white-headed pin. There was also, to be discussed +later, a packet of sandwiches, typical Convent affairs--large slabs of +bread embracing pale and clammy ham. Joan thought of these with +resignation. The odor of broiling beefsteak came back from the car ahead +rather poignantly. Joan had lied to the old lady. At eighteen, with +every nerve and organ in healthy cooeperation, appetite is not likely to +fail, on trains or elsewhere. Nor was it as if she did not have the +necessary dollar in her pocket. Major Darcy always managed to rise to +the occasion somehow when the ladies of his family went traveling. He +had a horror of gentlewomen finding themselves among strangers +temporarily embarrassed for funds--quite a different affair from a +permanent condition of the sort when in the home circle. + +She knew that it was expected of her to spend her dollar in riotous +living; but she could not forget (the Joans of the world never can +forget) that a dollar is the price of a pair of white gloves or a pair +of silk stockings. And so she munched her sacrificial sandwiches with a +considering eye on the future. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Later, as she lay propped up in her snug little berth (far the +pleasantest part of the journey to Joan), with her shade up for fear of +missing anything of the mysterious night that passed outside--strange, +silent cities, isolated farms asleep in the starlight, the glow of +smelting fires as they flashed by, like a startling glimpse into the +infernal regions--it suddenly occurred to Joan that her father had been +unprecedentedly lavish in his provision for her journey home. + +"Money for good-by presents to all the girls; money for ticket, and +sleeper, and tips, and ten dollars besides--goodness! Dad must have +struck something!" she mused, deciding that it was really business that +kept him from coming to see her graduate, and not, to put it delicately, +the lack of business. + +In the Darcy family things were always put delicately. The mention of +cost was deprecated. One never said crudely that a thing could not be +afforded. One "preferred not to bother about it just then," or one +"liked last year's hat so much better than any in the shops," or one +"enjoyed the freedom of being without servants for a while--it was a +relief." + +Occasionally Joan's mother, before she overcame the blunter speech of +the North, had offended the family taste with plain statements about +prices and possibilities. Joan, observant from her cradle, drew her own +conclusions from the expression of wincing deprecation these faux pas +produced upon her father's face, or upon that of the cousin or aunt or +what-not in the way of Darcy relation that was usually visiting them. + +"Mamma," she had asked once in the murmured intimacy that preceded +sleepy time, "isn't money a very nice fing?" + +"A very nice thing indeed, babykins," answered the lady with a faint +sigh. + +"Then why mustn't us never speak about it?" + +It was not the only one of her daughter's questions that the harassed +woman had been obliged to parry with what skill lay at her command. +Honesty always came more easily to Mary Darcy than subterfuge. + +Joan grew up into the family habit of euphonious speech; but, thanks to +a certain inheritance from her mother, facts had a way of presenting +themselves to her inner vision with a clarity, a brutal frankness of +outline, quite unprecedented in the mind of a Darcy. + +Her facility in the valuable game of Pretend came from the paternal +strain. Richard Darcy was one of those fortunate spirits who move +through life to the sound of an invisible drum corps--a procession of +one, affably ready for whatever honors Fate chose to thrust upon him. +Joan, too, was quite prepared for the best the world had to offer. +Nevertheless, unlike her father, she was never unaware of the difference +between pretense and reality, nor of the fixed line dividing them. When +she lied, it was deliberately, with her eyes wide open. + +Just now she chose to step over the dividing line firmly into reality. +Perhaps her dinner may have had something to do with it; a diet of +chocolates and ham sandwiches not being conducive to glamour of thought, +even at eighteen. + +Joan wished, soberly, that she were happier at the idea of going home. +She wished that she were not haunted by a vague dread of it.... + +The Convent--with its daily round of prescribed duties and pleasures, +its fixed intimates and enemies, its atmosphere of simple piety, its +guardian nuns, striving conscientiously for that "detachment from place" +which is enjoined upon them, but lavishing all the pent-up +mother-passion of their hearts upon the young creatures in their +care--Joan, young as she was, visualized the place she had left as a +sunny haven, a little quiet eddy in the whirlpool; sheltered, secluded, +safe. + +She frowned at the adjective. Surely her own home was "safe," too! +Surely the vague dread she felt had nothing to do with her father, for +instance--her own dear, splendid Dad, so handsome despite his frayed and +spotted clothes, with the courtly manner that had won both nuns and +girls to awestruck admiration, and that gave him far more distinction +than the fathers of other girls who did not wear frayed and spotted +clothes. No, it could not be her father she dreaded! + +And it was certainly not Ellen Neal, the elderly woman who had followed +the Darcy fortunes in their waxing and waning for many a year--part +servant, part mentor, always friend; declining to be shaken off even in +those crises when Mrs. Darcy "enjoyed doing without servants"; +supporting herself during such financial depressions by means of a +skilful needle--supporting, Joan sometimes suspected, others than +herself. The girl recalled one significant incident of her early +childhood; her mother, pale and anxious, arguing at the door with a rude +man who declined to leave without something she seemed unable to give +him, until Ellen appeared, half running up the street, opening her +shopping-bag as she came. And when she had thrust something into the +rude man's hands and slammed the door in his face, Mrs. Darcy had turned +silently to the servant and kissed her. + +Joan's feeling for Ellen was one of the few she had never tried to +analyze. It was simply there, like her breath, her eyesight. She could +not be said to love her--there was nothing attractive about Ellen Neal; +yet her only quarrel with her father (if anything so one-sided could be +called a quarrel) was on the subject of Ellen. Once during Joan's +previous summer vacation, the Major, who disliked familiarity in +servants, had taken occasion to remind Ellen most kindly that his +daughter was almost a young lady now and should be spoken to as Miss +Joan, no longer as "Joie" or as "Baby." Joan had thoroughly concurred in +this opinion; until, happening to glance at Ellen as she left the room, +she saw that the servant's compressed lips were trembling. She had cried +out unaccountably: "No such thing, Nellen! You're to call me anything +you like, always!"--and then she had turned upon her father, scolding, +stammering out astonishing reminders, raising her voice, altogether +behaving in a manner most unbecoming a gentlewoman and a Darcy--as her +father quite obviously forebore to suggest to her. The quarrel had been +altogether a most unsatisfactory one. During her tirade the Major had +sat with poised carving-knife, regarding his daughter under mildly +raised eyebrows. When she had stormed herself out, he remarked quietly, +in quotation marks: + + "Her voice was ever soft and low, + An excellent thing in woman." + +But the matter of "Miss Joan" was, by tacit consent, never resumed +between them. + +No, it was decidedly not Ellen Neal who was responsible for her vague +dread of home-coming. The girl, who had an odd dislike of anything vague +in her mental processes, pursued the fugitive sensation to its lair with +relentless precision. + +Was it the poverty of home she feared, then? Surely not, for poverty was +a condition quite as much with her elsewhere--rather more with her +elsewhere, for among strangers it was impossible to practice those +useful little economies of ragged underwear and worn-out shoes which in +the privacy of home-life made an occasional extravagance possible. Joan +rather looked forward to the time when she no longer need be on +dress-parade, so to speak, at every hour of the day. + +"If I wear cheap nightgowns, I can buy myself a good hat," was her +thought--a thought which may be said to sum up the philosophy of the +Darcy family. + +And although it seems customary among novelists to gage the refinement +of their heroines by the daintiness of their taste in underlinen--no +matter if her outer wear be sackcloth and ashes, the lingerie of a true +fiction lady is invariably above reproach--one would like to submit that +an almost equal refinement may be indicated by the present heroine's +determination to make as brave a showing as possible before her world +with as little strain as possible upon her father's income.... + +Was it her mother's absence she feared then--still? Forewarned, Joan +resolutely kept back the nervous tears that threatened to rise again at +the thought of her mother; and she faced the possibility calmly. + +During the summer before, alone with her father and Ellen, Joan had been +given plenty of time to get used to her mother's absence. Indeed, it +seemed to her suddenly that during the several years previous she had +been given time to get used to her mother's absence. It was as if Mary +Darcy, knowing that the hand of death was upon her, had deliberately, +gradually, withdrawn herself from the child she loved, in order to make +the final separation easier. + +"That would have been like Mother," said Joan, nodding. + +She understood, in that moment of clear vision, why she had been sent +away to boarding-school, despite her father's amazed protests--it was +unprecedented that Mrs. Darcy should remain so firm in the matter of +incurring unnecessary expense. She understood, too, why the narrow, +bleak house in Louisville, which was the latest of their many homes, had +taken on none of the look of her mother--that intimate, friendly, +stay-awhile air which Mary Darcy, with the aid of long practice, managed +to produce among the most unlikely surroundings within a few hours of +occupancy. True, the old furniture made its faithful reappearance there, +part of Joan's earliest recollections--the parlor suite of rosewood with +blue velour, the little cottage piano, the great bed in which she, and +her mother, and her mother's mother had been born, shorn long ago of its +tester to accommodate altered circumstances--all looking a trifle +shabbier, a trifle more battered after each adventure with fortune, but +still dignified and "good," with the unmistakable mien of gentlefolk in +reduced circumstances. For once, however, Mary Darcy had not been able +to accomplish her usual miracle with this furniture. Chairs, sofa, +tables, stood stiffly wherever the moving-men had chosen to place them, +making no attempts to hide the spots on the wall-paper; the thread-bare +velvet portieres which had separated parlor from hall in every home that +Joan remembered had never been altered to fit this one; stranger still, +there were no green growing things in the window-sills, nor even in the +can-strewn, sooty backyard. Joan could not recall any other home she had +lived in without some attempt at a garden, were it only a few geraniums +in the window-box. + +"Mamma must have been very tired," she thought, soberly; and realized +that, far from dreading her mother's absence in that dingy, dreary +house, she was almost glad of it. When one is as tired as Mrs. Darcy, +rest is the great boon--rest from hopeless hoping, rest from making +homes out of patience and courage and a few old sticks of furniture, +rest from the anxious sorrow of loving. + +Joan was young to understand such things; but at her birth the fairies +had given her the cruel gift of seeing out of the eyes of others.... + +She came to the conclusion at last the thing she had been dreading was +simply responsibility. Her play-time was over. No stretch of imagination +could make her a little girl again--not with her hair well up on her +head and a love-letter crackling deliciously under her pillow! Hereafter +it was hers to create the home her mother had relinquished; hers to make +ends meet somehow, if only in the accepted Irish way of "cutting a piece +off one end and tying it onto the other"; hers to keep out of her +father's eyes a certain baffled, hunted look which Joan associated with +men who came to collect bills, referred to grimly by Ellen as "the +Indians." No family of pioneers on the long-ago western frontier ever +lived in greater fear of Indians than did Richard and Mary Darcy and +their child Joan. + +The girl sighed, bracing her slight shoulders. But still thinking of her +mother, she rehearsed sleepily one tenet of the little creed she had +made long since to fit her necessities: + + "It does not pay to be too unselfish." + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Friends of Mary Darcy, in the distant days before they forgot to discuss +her surprising marriage with a promoter from who knows where, were wont +to say, "At least he makes a devoted husband and father!" + +Which was perfectly true. His little family had always been, as he often +said, a passion with Richard Darcy. Perhaps his facility in saying +things of the sort was what had appealed in the first place to the shy, +undemonstrative Northernness of Mary. Though he was one of several who +had professed their willingness to live for her, he was the only suitor +who had offered to die for her--an attention she could not but +appreciate. + +It was entirely for his child's sake (and, indeed, at some personal risk +to himself, had Mary but suspected it) that two years before Major Darcy +had so arranged the mysterious affairs he called Business as to be able +to return to the State and city of his illustrious birth; "where," he +explained with proud humility, "we are not quite nobodies, my darling!" + +(The "who knows where" on the part of Mary's friends had been sheer +arrogant affectation; for nobody could have talked with Richard Darcy +for five minutes without learning that he had been born and raised and +hoped to die in the great Commonwealth of Kentucky.) + +Joan had been quite as eager about the prospective move as her father, +marveling at the apathy of her mother, who said, "I never mind being +'nobodies,' Richard, so long as we have each other." + +Romantic visions danced through the girl's head of stately pillared +mansions, of faithful negro servitors, of fascinating belles and +gallants on horseback (her mental language became quite stilted and ante +bellum to suit the picture), riding to hounds through meadows as blue as +the skies above. + +"Though I don't suppose there's much bluegrass right around Louisville, +is there, Daddy?" she demanded, with the passion for truth that was in +her. + +"Plenty of it, Dollykins, plenty of it--though of course Louisville is +not really in the bluegrass region, you remember. It belongs to the +beargrass district." (Joan nodded. Thanks to her father's powers of +reminiscence, she was well up on her Kentucky.) "Still, it isn't like +one of these soulless Northern cities, which regard land as so much +waste space on which to build monstrosities!" He glanced out truculently +upon the streets of Chicago, which had managed in some way to incur the +Major's displeasure. "No, no, there's plenty of bluegrass about the old +town still, plenty of space, plenty of room to breathe. And how my old +friends will take you to their hearts and love you! None of this +blighting Northern indifference to everything except the chink of money. +Money--_bah!_--It is God's country down there, my child--gentleman's +country." + +This was not anti-climax on the Major's part. He visualized God at His +best as a superior sort of Christian gentleman, who, had America been +discovered at the time, would doubtless have chosen the Southern portion +of it for the scene of His nativity. + +Of course the girl's anticipations of "God's country" were too glowing +not to foredoom her to disappointment. The bluegrass itself was a flat +failure; mere meadows of ordinary green, above which hung in seedtime a +purplish tinge, like smoke from burning leaves. Louisville, too, did not +quite meet the rosy expectations of a young person rather experienced in +cities. + +They were received at the station, not by a deputation of the old +friends who were to take them to their hearts and love them, but merely +by a cousin, one of three Misses Darcy who had paid lengthy southern +visits to the various places Joan had hitherto called home. By this lady +they were conducted volubly in street-cars (Joan had hoped for a +long-tailed carriage-pair) to an ancestral mansion which had loomed +large in the Major's reminiscences, but which, as he himself admitted, +appeared to have shrunk strangely, after the way of houses one has known +in early youth. It was one of a row of duplicate tall marble fronts, +stained and yellowed, unpleasantly suggestive to Joan's too-vivid +imagination of neglected front teeth. + +From this shelter the Darcys soon departed. The cousins, while most +cordial, were under the necessity of letting their spare chambers to +paying guests, under which category their Cousin Richard could not with +any certainty be classed. + +Joan recalled vividly the family search for a house that suited both her +father's taste and her mother's pocket-book. The streets had seemed to +her gray, endless canons, from whose pavements the heat arose and eddied +in dizzying waves. From within dark doorways women in dressing-sacks, +waving palm-leaf fans, gazed out at them languidly. Block after block +they traversed of houses that seemed as afraid of differing from each +other as men in evening dress; again they came to neighborhoods where +each dwelling stood at a bias angle from the street, as if hoping to +achieve an impossible privacy by turning a cold shoulder upon its +neighbor. And everywhere they huddled together as close as possible, +presenting a solid front of masonry to repel invasion. Where was the +space her father had boasted, the room to breathe? + +Joan had gazed longingly down certain vistas of tree-lined avenues, +lined with pleasant mansions; or into compact green courts where there +were smaller homes, with gardens. But these the elders passed without +inquiry. They were as quick as house-agents at guessing rents. + +At last an abode was found that seemed to the Major suitable upon all +counts. Mrs. Darcy, gazing up at its tall, narrow brick front, said with +a slight sigh, "Isn't there a good deal of it to keep clean, dear?" + +It was the first time Joan had noticed her mother's new little air of +weary indifference. + +"Ah, but in the South one cannot be cramped for room," replied the Major +largely. "There is hospitality to be considered! You must remember that +our daughter's debut into society will take place from this house, my +love. Who knows?--perhaps her wedding!" He pinched Joan's cheek +playfully. "How do you like it, Dollykins?" + +"Not at all," she replied, too discouraged to be euphonious just then. +"It's hideous, and there's a grocer-shop opposite, and Mother'll never +sleep with these horrid cars jangling by. Why can't we have a house in +one of those pretty green courts, Daddy?" + +The Major looked pained. Mary came to the rescue. A few years ago she +would have explained bluntly that they could not afford one of the +pretty green courts. Now she said with a rallying smile, "What! Not a +banal, stupid, uninteresting new bungalow such as one might have in +Pittsburgh, or Oshkosh, or Kalamazoo, Michigan! Where's your sense of +local color, child? The atmosphere wouldn't be right at all!" + +Joan thought that the atmosphere of this neighborhood seemed to be +largely compounded of soot and sewer-gas; but she did not say so. + +Richard Darcy, brightening, pointed out that while the house indeed +faced a grocery-shop (so convenient for Ellen!), its rear was separated +only by an alley from the rear of a house which faced upon a very fine +avenue indeed; a backyard in which at the moment lingerie of a faint +flesh-pink disported lacy ruffles and kicked airy silken limbs upon a +clothes line. (Of this lingerie more anon.) + +"Evidently," pronounced the Major with an unconscious eye upon it, "a +desirable neighborhood in every way." + +So the lease was signed, and Ellen Neal and the furniture sent for, and +the first month's rent paid in advance; and these feats having been +accomplished, Mary Darcy took to her familiar bed and died there, +promptly and unobtrusively as was her way, without leaving any +inconsiderate doctors' and nurses' bills behind her. + +That first summer in Kentucky was a strange time to Joan. It was filled +with dim memories of the books she read aloud to her father day after +day, in the futile effort to be a companion to him; of long walks she +took with him in the cool of the evenings, through streets and parks and +suburbs that were as strange to the man who had come back to them, Joan +suspected, as to herself; and far more desolate. For the ghost of a boy +haunted them; a mischievous, headstrong, innocent lad who had meant no +harm to the world, nor to himself, in those days. + +Sometimes in the older streets he pointed out to her houses which came +near to fulfilling her best hopes of pillared Southern mansions. + +"Tim Throckmorton used to live there," he would say, forlornly; or +"Many's the time I've courted pretty Sally Field in that parlor!" + +Now there were "Furnished Room" signs in the windows, or shops in the +lower floors, or, worst degeneracy of all, signs of negro habitation. +For many a day the two hunted for a certain dearly remembered pond where +a boy named Dick and his friends had been wont to repair for fishing and +swimming and many a feat of derring-do. But they never found it; only +houses already old, and even office-buildings, in the place where it +might have been. + +And in those long and lonely walks they met no friends. It was as if for +Richard Darcy the streets of Louisville were peopled by the dead. + +Joan had suffered for her father even more than for herself. Somehow she +felt that she was better able to bear things than her father. And in her +inner consciousness, lonely as she was for her mother, and must always +be, she knew that the misery in her heart was a thing that would pass. +She was too young to be so sad for long. + +Old Ellen wisely kept her busy with her preparations for +boarding-school, her father having announced his intention of complying +scrupulously with his dead wife's wishes, no matter at what cost to +himself. Joan thought this very generous of him, although the cost was +figurative rather than literal, as Mrs. Darcy's little property was +willed to her child, with himself as guardian. Sometimes she had been a +little ashamed of herself for the willingness with which she prepared to +leave him, the eagerness with which she longed for the merry +companionships and irresponsibilities of school again. But perhaps it +was natural enough, considering that throughout that dreary summer her +sole companions had been her grief-stricken father, the servant Ellen, +and the sympathetic maiden cousins, who would have felt it indelicate to +so much as smile in the presence of such deep mourning. + +Toward the end of the summer she made one other acquaintance, thanks to +the above-mentioned lingerie. One of the sudden summer wind-storms which +occur sometimes in the Ohio Valley landed in their yard one Monday +morning a garment that had strayed unmistakably from the clothes line +across the alley; a trifle of palest silk and lace and blue ribbons +which Ellen Neal eyed with dark suspicion, but which Joan privately +determined to copy for herself so soon as finances permitted. + +Monday being the day when Ellen's temper was at its most difficult, Joan +decided to abate her dignity to the point of returning the article +herself; and so she made her way, looking very young and touching in her +homemade black frock, to the front entrance of the house across the +alley. And there by good luck she met, just alighting in her +porte-cochere from a most imposing limousine, a person who was +indubitably the owner of the strayed garment; a plump, blonde, dimpled +lady who suggested pink _crepe de Chine_ and blue satin bows all over +her. She greeted Joan with an effulgence that seemed out of all +proportion to its cause, until in the course of conversation it +transpired that she, like the Darcys, was a newcomer in Louisville, and +rather lonely. Her name was Mrs. Calloway, and she came, as she vaguely +explained, from "across the river." + +"It isn't as easy to get acquainted here as I thought it would be," she +admitted naively, "Still," she added with her dimpling smile, "I expect +folks will be friendly enough, once they get to know me, don't you +think?" + +"Of course they will!" murmured Joan quite sincerely; for despite the +woman's patent vulgarity, there was something attractive about her. One +felt above all things that she was kind; and just then kindness meant a +good deal to the lonely girl. + +This kindness began at once to manifest itself. Elaborate desserts and +salads, in very ornate dishes, made their way across the alley to the +Darcy table; obligations scrupulously returned by Ellen with pickles and +preserves of her own making. There were other generosities, more +difficult to return in kind; candy, automobile drives, hothouse flowers, +the latter evidently meant for the grave where Mary Darcy lay among +strangers. + +Over these attentions Ellen Neal grumbled frequently. "Your pa certainly +ain't noticin' much these days, or he'd never let you get so thick with +a strange woman we don't know nothin' about, Joan." + +"A strange _lady_, Ellen," corrected Joan with dignity. + +"Humph! Lady is as lady does. Look at her face, all painted up like a +sign-board!" + +"Southern ladies quite frequently rouge," said Joan out of her recent +observations; but she did not pursue the subject, for she herself had +doubts as to her father's approval of this new acquaintance. Richard +Darcy was no democrat. He had been heard frequently to state, as one +rather proud of the confession, that he had no use whatever for the +_canaille_ (which he pronounced "_canile_.") + +Hence she was a little embarrassed and uneasy when, one Sunday morning +as she and her father were starting on their weekly visit to the one bit +of his native soil owned so far by Richard Darcy--his wife's grave--a +limousine drew up at their door, out of which beamed the face of Mrs. +Calloway, beneath a broad pink hat. + +"I suspected you'd be off to the cemetery this fine morning," she called +out cheerily, "and I thought I'd come and take you, you and your father. +Hop right in, both of you. No, it won't be a bit of trouble. I've +nothing else to do, and I always did love a cemetery anyway--it's the +first place I go to whenever I strike a new town." + +Joan glanced nervously at her father, wondering how he would take this +initial encounter with Mrs. Calloway. But after a moment's pause of +sheer astonishment, the Major's native gallantry came to the rescue, and +he advanced for the introduction with all the manner of one about to be +presented at court. + +They found themselves bowling along at a smart clip among the +churchgoers and the more lively joy-riders, out for a Sunday's pleasure, +which thronged the avenue that sultry August morning. + +"Now isn't this better than a poky old street-car?" demanded Mrs. +Calloway archly. + +The Major responded in kind. "Undoubtedly! Particularly in the matter of +company." + +Joan's liking for her kind-hearted neighbor had suffered a sudden +eclipse. Ellen was right about her--"Lady is as lady does." It was worse +than vulgar to force herself upon them at such a time--it was unfeeling, +indecent. She envied her father's poise. She had never seen him appear +to such advantage as upon this trying occasion, in his new, cheap black +suit which had not as yet had time to acquire spots and wrinkles, his +fine features showing the ravages of sorrow, his handsome gray head bent +courteously toward this voluble companion as though her every word were +priceless. Manners, she reflected, cannot be assumed on occasion like +garments, but are a part of the very texture of a personality. She could +not imagine her father anything but suavely courteous, even under the +most untoward circumstance. + +Nevertheless, beneath her pride in him lingered an odd fear lest, now +that he had an audience, he might be moved to oratory over her mother's +grave. With Richard Darcy emotion and the expression of it were usually +simultaneous. Joan's unresponsiveness (a trait which she hated in +herself, but could not help) had hitherto kept her father somewhat in +check; but in the presence of a kindly warmth of sympathy like Mrs. +Calloway's there was no telling what might happen. + +The Major, however, contented himself with murmuring, as he approached +the grave, "She was very, very dear to me!" in so touching a voice that +Mrs. Calloway openly wiped her eyes, exclaiming, "You poor man! Don't +you think I understand--I, who've laid away two of them?" + +Joan moved hastily out of earshot, leaving the pair to reminiscence. +Talk of things that hurt was to the girl like pouring acid upon an open +wound; but if it helped her poor father, by all means let it help him. +She had never made the mistake of thinking that because his grief was +facile it was any the less strong and real. His utter helplessness, his +stunned amaze that the wife he so sorely needed could have gone away and +left him to bear the vicissitudes of life without her, were as piteous +to his daughter as the wailing grief of a child. If she could have +comforted him in any way other than by speech she would have done so. In +the presence of great emotion she was dumb--though she sometimes thought +she might be able to write him what she felt. Often at night she lay +awake for hours, wondering how she could drive out of his eyes that +baffled, frightened look which always came when things went wrong with +him, and which only her mother had been able to banish.... + +It haunted her all through the months which followed, that look of her +father's; and sometimes in the midst of school-girl gaieties she would +fall suddenly silent, thinking that she had no right to enjoy herself +because he was there alone in the city of his childhood which seemed to +have forgotten him. Joan was not yet quite the hard young egotist she +intended to become. + +And so when toward the end of her journey the train slid into a pleasant +country, mellow with the evening sun, long reaches of rolling pasture +and hill and fertile bottom-land that meant Kentucky, something welled +up in the girl's heart deeper than glamour of place, stronger than +regret for her sheltered little past, than fear and hope for her +unguessed future; perhaps the deepest and strongest feeling life plants +in the human soul--the blood-tie. Weak or brave, fraud or fool or +honorable gentleman--perhaps a little of all these things--it was her +father who waited there for a woman to come and make him a home again; +and Joan was ready. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +The fellow-traveler who had incurred Miss Darcy's displeasure by a +too-active sympathy was much pleased, being of a sentimental turn of +mind, to witness a family reunion which presently took place in the +station at Louisville. A tall, slender gentleman of a youngish +Confederate colonel type--gray mustache and imperial, with a soft hat +set very slightly to one side of his handsome head--detached himself +from the crowd with a cry of, "Here I am, Dollykins!" + +Whereupon the girl dropped all her belongings, and cast herself upon him +speechless, to be lifted well off the ground and hugged and kissed very +thoroughly. + +"Fine! She's got a father, anyway, and a bully old bird at that," +thought the young man, who had never owned either father or mother or +much of anything else that he could remember. It was his further +privilege to hurry after the pair with a suit-case, some magazines, and +a box of candy which both had characteristically forgotten. + +He was thanked by Major Darcy with an affable smile, and by his daughter +with a curt, impersonal nod of dismissal after Sister Mary Joseph's best +manner; which also pleased him, for he was by no means a thin-skinned +young man, and preferred his gentlewomen haughty. He followed the pair +far enough to observe the vehicle to which the father was obviously +conducting her. + +"Humph!" he said to himself; "rich people!" and turned away, rather +disappointed. (Why this should be, the writer cannot say, being merely a +chronicler of facts.) + +Joan's flow of excited babble paused as she herself saw this vehicle. +"Goodness! Are we going home in a taxicab? What grandeur!" she murmured, +mentally figuring out the tariff. Then the monogram on the door +enlightened her. + +"Oh, it's Mrs. Calloway's," she said, relieved, a little ashamed to have +quite forgotten the existence of their well-meaning neighbor. "How good +of her to send it for me!" she added with a giggle, recalling her recent +game of Pretend. "All you need to do to complete the picture, Daddy, is +to say, 'Home, James!'" + +Major Darcy obligingly murmured, "Home, James!" The chauffeur touched +his cap, and enclosed them in the perfumed elegance of the limousine. + +Joan gave a crow of laughter, and rubbed her cheek affectionately +against her father's sleeve. This was like old times indeed, happy old +times, when in his lighter moments the Major had frequently entered into +the spirit of her play. The contact of his sleeve was unusually soft, +and she suddenly held him at arm's length to see him better. + +"Why, Major Darcy! If you haven't gone and bought yourself a new suit in +honor of the occasion. A beauty, too!" + +He surveyed what he could of himself complacently. "The fellow has given +me rather a good fit, I think." + +Joan gasped. "'The fellow!' Then it's not a ready-made--you've actually +been to a tailor for it? Oh, Daddy darling!" she cried excitedly, "have +you been making money?" + +The Major's eyebrows lifted. "I believe," he remarked, "that I have +usually made money, have I not? Sufficient, at least, to keep my family +comfortable." + +Joan was reminded with a jerk of Darcy traditions. "Of course!" She +flushed. "I didn't mean--" + +And suddenly she realized that the look she had been so long dreading to +see in his eyes, that expression of anxiety which was almost fear, had +quite disappeared. There was an air about him of security, of +nonchalance, as one who would say, "Bring on your Indians! Who's +afraid?" (Not that the Major would have condescended to know the meaning +of the family expression, "Indians.") + +Joan gave his hand a quick little squeeze that was oddly maternal. "I'm +so glad, Dad," she said quietly; and went on to speak of other things. + +They turned into the street where home was. Silence fell upon her. The +prospect of facing her mother's absence was more difficult than she had +thought it would be. At least there was Ellen to comfort her; gruff, +matter-of-fact old Ellen, always at her crossest when most deeply moved. +She pinned her thoughts to Ellen. + +The Major's recent prosperity seemed not to have affected his +dwelling-place as yet. As they drew near, Joan saw even in the dusk that +the little lawn in front needed attention; nor was there so much as a +light in the window to greet her--Ellen was always so careful about the +gasbill. Then, as the limousine did not stop, she realized the For Rent +sign on the door. + +"Why, Dad, we've moved!" she cried with an odd pang at her heart. "Oh, +but where?" + +"Wait and see. 'Lay-lows for meddlers,'" he smiled, pleased with his +little stage-effect. + +The limousine bowled smoothly around the corner into the fashionable +avenue beyond; and Joan thought, with a habit of anxiety beyond her +years, that the new money would not last long if they were to live in +such a neighborhood as this. But they stopped at a door she remembered, +an imposing door with a porte-cochere, where, still as in her game of +Pretend, a lady in a tea-gown stood waiting for them. Not, however, her +mother. + +"Here you are at last, girlie!" cried the cheery voice of Mrs. Calloway; +and she was received into a voluminous pink chiffon embrace, highly +scented with the latest thing in perfumes. + +Joan fought her way quite rudely out of this embrace, feeling +suffocated. Her knees had begun to tremble. + +"Are--are we visiting you!" she quavered, piteously putting off the +inevitable. + +The lady laughed, a laugh as plump and soft and cushiony as the rest of +her. "There, now, Dickie; I don't believe you've had the nerve to tell +her yet!" + +She rustled over and stood beside the Major, slightly in front of him, +so that she could lean back archly against his shoulder; a position +which seemed to bring an arm automatically into position about her +waist. + +"Dollykins," said Richard Darcy, clearing his throat and not quite +meeting the girl's wide gaze, "this is my--my graduation gift to you. +Your new mamma!" + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Joan was alone at last in such a bed as she had never occupied in her +life, even in her most luxurious games of Pretend. To her inexperience +the sheets felt as if made of softest silk--at its crest the Darcy +establishment had never run to fine linen--and they were edged with lace +which Joan longed frugally to transfer to a best petticoat; only that +there seemed no need for her to trouble further about best petticoats, +nor about anything else. Under the eager guidance of her "new mamma," +drawer after drawer in the room she occupied had been opened to disclose +piles of exquisite underthings, of the sort Joan had first encountered +upon the Calloway clothes lines, except that these were white instead of +pink. + +"Pink's _my_ color," explained the former Mrs. Calloway. "Besides, white +lawngerie seems sort of better for a girl that's never been married, +don't you think? Even if it isn't so becoming. 'Tain't as if there was +anybody to see her in it," she added, with a conscious blush. + +Joan found no suitable comment to make upon this treasure-trove. Her +lips would not utter anything beyond a perfunctory "Thank you," even +when further investigation discovered a closet hung with dresses of +every sort, with peignoirs, with motor-coats and dainty wraps, with +everything in the way of finery which every girl alive hopes at some +time to possess, but which the daughter of Richard Darcy had learned to +look upon from afar with an air of indifference. + +"Are these all for me?" she asked dully. + +"Of course they are! Just a few little models I had sent up on +approval." (The ex-Mrs. Calloway invariably referred to her costumes in +affectionate diminutives, as "little gowns," "little negligees," "little +hats," etc., though the adjective could rarely be said to fit them.) "If +these don't suit we'll get others--though anything ought to look good on +your form, dearie." She added, clasping her hands, "It certainly is fun +shoppin' for a daughter of your own!"--an outburst which might have +struck some responsive chord in a heart less young than Joan's, less +hard and tight and bitter with the tears that would not come. + +Major Darcy had observed her apathy under this rain of largesse with +some disapproval. It was not the first time he had secretly wished that +his daughter might have inherited a trifle more of the Darcy manner. At +length, as the girl stood looking about her new room silently, still +with the strange lack of comment that seemed like indifference, he +ventured a remonstrance. + +"I don't think you quite realize how much time and thought and trouble +your--er, your mother and I have expended on these little surprises for +your home-coming, Dollykins. Or you would be more appreciative." + +"_My mother!_" repeated Joan to herself with a sick gasp. + +It was the bride who came to her rescue. "She's tired out, Major, that's +all. And no wonder! She hardly ate a bite of dinner. You go right to bed +and sleep, girlie," she advised comfortably. "In the morning you'll be +better able to enjoy all your pretties." + +So Joan was at last alone, wondering whether she would ever be able to +enjoy anything again; alone in a strange room crowded with large blond +bird's-eye maple furniture which reminded her oddly of her step-mother; +with pale blue walls, a blue rug, blue silk covers on chairs and bed, +blue stationery spread out on the desk, all to match. There was nothing, +not a chair, nor book nor picture, to remind its forlorn inhabitant of +home; until suddenly, lost amid the glitter of the silver on the +dressing-table, she discovered a faded photograph of her mother which +her father had for many years carried in his pocket. This she jerked out +of the opulent silver frame that disguised it, and held hungrily to her +cheek, going to bed with it finally under her pillow. It did not occur +to her to wonder who had put it there. (But it was not Richard Darcy.) + +Yet still the tears would not come. She lay staring into the dark with +hot, dry, aching eyes, repeating agonizingly to herself the questions +she had not found courage to ask her father--foolish, trivial questions +that seemed almost irrelevant in the face of this overwhelming +calamity.... What had he done with the furniture, their furniture, the +dear, shabby tables and chairs and hangings which were part of the home +Mary Darcy had given her life in making?... And where was Ellen? What +had he done with Ellen? Was there to be nothing left? + +Once she whispered aloud, "How _could_ he?"--but resolutely turned her +mind away from that. It did not bear thinking of. The luxury of the room +seemed to crowd upon her, choking her.... The price of her father's +shame!... + +It seemed to her near morning when her door opened, softly. She began to +shiver, thinking it must be her father come for the intimate explanatory +talk which was inevitable between them. What could she say to him? How +could she ever find anything to say to her father again? + +But it was not Richard Darcy who tiptoed in. The lamp beside her bed +clicked on, revealing a good deal of the former Mrs. Calloway in a +marvellous nightgown, her golden head as carefully coiffed as for a +ball. + +"Major's off and going strong," she announced, "so I slipped away to see +how you were gettin' on, dearie. I Had a kind of feelin' you wouldn't be +asleep yet. I'm like that myself in a strange bed.... Look here," her +voice changed as she saw the white and miserable face among the +pillows--"you aren't holding it against your papa and me, girlie, +because we sprung this on you as a surprise? I _told_ Major we ought to +wait till you came home! But it was you who introduced us, you know; and +I knew it would be all right as soon as we got to know each other +better. And Major wouldn't hear to waiting, was bound and determined to +have me just as soon as he could get me. Men,"--she laughed her plump, +merry laugh--"are such babies when it comes to havin' what they want +right away, ain't they?" + +"Are they?" said Joan dully. + +"You take it from me they are! A man that doesn't want you quick don't +want you at all. And I must say your father needed marryin' more than +any one I _ever_ saw! Spots all over his clothes, and that shiny in the +back you could see your face in him. Your mother must have had a time +keepin' that man neat! Besides, if we'd waited till you came, what would +we have done with you on the honeymoon? Not," she added coyly, "that +it's over yet, by any means! When he was on his death-bed Calloway said +to me, says he, 'Effie May, our honeymoon never has been over, has it?' +Some women are that way, just naturally affectionate and fond of makin' +men feel at home. And both of us were real lonesome.... You don't blame +me for marrying Major, do you?" she finished rather wistfully. + +Joan said after a long pause, "No, I don't think I blame you, Mrs. +Calloway." + +The other gave an unexpected squeal of mirth. "Goodness' sakes, don't +call me _that_! If you don't feel like callin' me 'mamma' yet"--(there +was a hopeful pause, which Joan did not fill)--"then you might as well +call me Effie May. I'm not so awfully much older than you, I guess--I +was only sixteen when I eloped with my first. But there's one thing I +wanted to tell you"--(her voice lost its confident note and became +rather shy). "I married your father as much to get you as to get him, +dearie. A man's easy enough to pick up anywhere, goodness knows! if +you've got the looks. But a child--" she sighed. "That's something else +again. I used to think I'd like to adopt one, only Calloway didn't want +to be bothered--Say, it was more fun than anything I've ever done in my +life, shopping for lawngerie and little models and all, and telling the +girls in the stores they were for my little girl just coming home from +boarding-school!..." + +At this juncture, for some inexplicable reason--perhaps the warmth of a +kindly human presence, perhaps sheer rage with the vulgar, impossible +creature who, having purchased her father, expected also to purchase +her--whatever brought them, Joan's tears suddenly arrived--a torrent, a +deluge of them; in the midst of which her new mamma, with more tact than +might have been expected of her, disappeared. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +"Get up, Jo! Time you was gettin' up. Come, come--it's ten o'clock!" + +A familiar, relentless voice penetrated Joan's consciousness at last, +and she screwed her swollen eyelids down tighter and even managed a +reproving snore, wondering whether the halcyon days would ever come when +she might be allowed to sleep her sleep out in the morning. Probably +not, so long as Ellen Neal was within calling distance. The woman had a +horror of what she called shiftless ways. Once in a moment of special +exasperation she had been heard to mutter, "That's the chief thing +that's the matter with your pa--he's never ready to get up in the +morning!"--a remark which had remained in Joan's memory. + +Now the sheets were suddenly jerked off her, and the relentless voice +continued, "No use pretendin' you're asleep when you ain't. Here's your +breakfast they've sent up to you, child, just as if you was sick a-bed. +Humph!" + +Suddenly reality came back upon her with full force--horrible reality; +and she jumped up in bed and flung her arms around the old servant's +neck, clinging tight, as she had done many a time before when something +frightened her. + +"Oh, Nellen, Nellen!" she moaned. "It's you! I thought you had deserted +me, too!" + +The woman stood immobile in this embrace, making no effort to return it. +But her eyes blinked a little. + +"Sho! What would I want to do that for? Don't be silly--Look out! There +now, if you haven't gone and upset the coffee all over them fancy +sheets! Coffee's hard to get out, too. That's what comes of havin' your +vittles in bedrooms, where they don't belong." + +The tears, which had threatened to take possession of Joan again, turned +into a burst of wild laughter, "No matter! Plenty more where they come +from, Nellen. What is a lace-trimmed sheet to my new mamma? I expect the +very dishcloths are hand-embroidered. Behold the abode of cash, Ellen, +cash! Isn't it grand? Oh," she cried, her voice breaking, "_why_ didn't +you come to me last night! Didn't you know how I'd need you?" + +"I didn't know you was here, child, till I come this morning to see when +him and her was expectin' you." + +The girl's face fell. "Why, Ellen! Aren't you living here?" + +"Me? In this house? I wouldn't so demean myself," said the other primly. + +"Do you mean to say"--Joan's cheeks were hot--"that after all these +years, and everything you've done for us, my father has _let you go_?" + +Ellen tossed her head. "'Twan't none of his lettin', child. I told him +that all things considered I'd ruther sew for my livin'. And so I would. +Your time's your own that way, and you see more of folks. I like folks. +I must say," she added conscientiously, "that woman--your pa's wife--was +real kind about offerin' to get me work with a dressmaker. But Ellen +Neal don't have to be beholden to nobody, thank you!" + +"And where do you live?" + +A mysterious smile twinkled in the woman's eyes. "Some day when you're +good and sick of all this fancy flubdubbery" (she indicated with a +disparaging hand the elegancies of the blue chamber) "you come and see +where I live, Jo, and come often. I've got me two as nice rooms as ever +you seen. And--I got my own furniture for 'em, too, real grand furniture +I bought up cheap at an auction room. There's some carved chairs, and a +walnut desk with a bookcase on top, and some blue velvet porteers, and a +mahogany bed with the tester sawed off--" + +Comprehension dawned on Joan. "Ellen! _Our_ furniture!" she cried. + +Ellen nodded. "Some of it. As much as I could git. I'm keepin' it for +you till you git a home of your own to put it in, Joie. I sort of +thought your ma would want me to." + +Joan was weeping again, not the devastating flood of the past night, but +sweet and healing tears, as good for strained nerves as a summer rain is +good for flowers. + +"You old wretch!" she gulped. "Where did you get the money?" + +The other grinned. "Any time Ellen Neal gets caught without plenty in +her stockin'-fut, you may be sure the Scots blood is failin' her! I'm a +whole lot richer than I'm willin' to let some folks know. Why, I could +set idle, if I'd a mind to, the rest of my life--only I don't hold with +settin' idle just because you got a right." (Long afterwards it occurred +to Joan that Ellen, who was not given to discoursing on her own affairs, +must have had some reason for thus bragging of her unsuspected riches.) +"There's nothing," she added rather irrelevantly, "that makes a person +contented with the place she's in like knowin' she can go somewhere else +if she's a mind to." + +What barrier there had been between servant and mistress--a fluctuating +barrier at best, dependent upon Joan's varying conceptions of her own +dignity--had gone down forever under that rain of grateful tears, and +Joan felt free to ask some of the questions of which her heart was +full--how, for instance, the affair between her father and Mrs. Calloway +had begun. + +"How?" repeated Ellen grimly. "Well, when a lone female and a lone +he-male ain't got nothin' to keep 'em apart but an alley-fence, and her +with paint on her face till she looks like a fat sixteen, and food on +her table every day as good as a two-dollar table d'hote, what can you +expect? I wa'n't surprised myself. Nor," she added quietly, "I don't +believe your ma would be, Joan." + +"Oh, but how it must have hurt her!" + +Both spoke in low tones, as if the spirit of Mary Darcy might be +lingering near enough to overhear. + +"I ain't so sure about that," mused Ellen. "I ain't so sure! Your ma +always set great store on havin' the Major comfortable--'Ellen,' she +said to me that last day, when we knew what was comin'--'Ellen, be sure +to keep him _comfortable_ here at home, so he won't be lookin' for it +somewheres else.' There's worse things can happen to a widow-man than +gettin' married again." + +"Oh, but if I'd been here to look after him myself!" wailed Joan. "If +you had only told me what was happening! I might have come back and +stopped it!" + +"About as much chance as stopping a fire-hydrant that's blown the top +off. You're a smart child, Joan, always was; but you don't stand a show +against that woman your pa's married--nor I wouldn't want you to," she +added cryptically. "You wasn't raised that way.--Anyhow it wasn't none +of my business. And just remember this, child, it's none of yours. It's +none of yours!" + +After she had gone, a sense of something heartening and bracing remained +with Joan; and as she brushed out her straight, heavy hair with new +silver-backed brushes which bore her own initials, a typical Ellenism +recurred to her: "There's nothing that makes a person contented with the +place she's in like knowing she can go somewheres else if she's a mind +to." + +"At least," she thought suddenly, "I'm independent of father. Mother +left her property to me--I can get it whenever I ask for it.... And now +I understand why!" + +Mary Darcy had been a very far-sighted woman. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +It was long before Joan recovered from the dazed sensation her father's +little surprise had produced in her mind. Perhaps she never did quite +recover from it. Something died within her; a naif belief in the wisdom +of her elders, the ultimate rightness of existing things, which once +gone never returns again. If it is true that we live in experience +rather than in years, Joan came to her majority over night. + +It was her father's attitude which amazed her most. Had he seemed in the +least apologetic, in the least ashamed or embarrassed by the quality of +the woman he had put into her mother's place, she would have been ready +to pity and console and help him make the best of a grave mistake. But +the Major's attitude was that of the cat which has not only eaten the +canary, but digested it and found it extremely beneficial to the system. +Far from seeming apologetic, he appeared rather proud of his +performance. There was something almost pathetic in his content with his +new prosperity, with the ease and luxury of the establishment of which +he found himself head. + +Joan sometimes thought, with a scornful sort of pity, "How Dad must have +_hated_ to be poor!" + +Certainly he took to wealth, to which he had always professed himself +indifferent, with an alacrity which surprised his daughter. + +She had opportunity to notice, too, for the first time in action, +Richard Darcy's chief and perhaps sole equipment for the unequal battle +of life; his talent for making friends. Not for keeping them--that is a +separate art, calling for certain efforts, certain reticences, above all +certain abstentions of which Richard Darcy was temperamentally +incapable. But in the art of creating admiring and useful acquaintances +out of raw material he had few equals, even among his own profession. + +Mary Darcy had kept herself and her child for the most part aloof from +these easily acquired friends of her husband, though they were +invariably quite presentable--(as has been hinted, the Major had no use +whatever for what he called "the canile"). Possibly this was owing to +some odd Puritan scruples on Mary's part about combining business with +pleasure.... + +But now that business had no longer to be combined with pleasure, +Richard Darcy was free to exercise to the full his gift for being +agreeable, without afterthought. It was perhaps fortunate that his new +wife had made few friends of her own, a fact which left him unhampered +in the matter of what he called quite seriously "resuming his position." + +Joan found that he was no longer forgotten in the city of his youth. The +older residents had already been made aware by means of engraved and +crested announcements that Richard Throckmorton Darcy had returned to +their midst for the purpose of wedding one Effie May Smith Calloway, and +that the bridal pair would be at home after a certain date at a very +good address on Elmtree Street. Whither quite a respectable number of +them hastened, if only out of curiosity, to leave cards. + +What they found was an extremely affable, leisurely, and +prosperous-looking host, an establishment which appeared able and +willing to maintain those traditions of Southern hospitality which have +latterly fallen somewhat into disuse, and a rather silent young girl +whose manner atoned for the perhaps excessive cordiality of her +step-mother. Some of the callers did not come again, even under +pressure; but on the whole Joan realized that the old friends in whom +she had almost ceased to believe were about to take the Darcy family +belatedly to their bosoms, indifferent to the substitution of a Mrs. +Calloway for her mother. + +It was the girl's first experience of the omnipotence of money; an +experience which if it comes young enough will make a cynic out of a +congenital optimist, which Joan was not. + +To do the new Mrs. Darcy justice, she was an adaptable and, in her way, +a tactful creature who had already in her admiration of the Major and +his daughter, learned to modify her speech and behavior rather +touchingly. And her frank delight with what she called "breaking into +society," may have been rather disarming to society; or to such portion +of it as found its way to the imposing house on Elmtree Street. She was +extremely cordial to her guests, urging them to come often, to have more +iced tea and cake, to take candy home to the children, to try the +Major's cigars and whisky, for which he had an undoubted palate. If the +women looked at her a little askance, the men were loud in her praises, +and obeyed her urgings to come often. + +Effie May, encouraged, began shortly to seek new worlds to conquer. + +"Well, what next?" she demanded one night at dinner, after an afternoon +of callers, stifling a wide pink yawn with the palm of a much beringed +hand. "Your old families are all very well, Dickie boy, refined and +classy and all that--but, my God, they ain't exciting! Now are they? +Isn't there anybody in Louisville born since the Civil War?" + +"If there is, I'm afraid I don't know it," admitted the Major, smiling +indulgently. "You see the people who were young when I left are young no +longer." + +"So we've noticed," murmured his bride, making a companionable grimace +at Joan. "But we don't want to spend the rest of our lives in the +baldhead row, do we, girlie? You've got to find us something under sixty +to pal around with, Hubby mine, that's all there is to it. See?" + +One of her step-mother's most unbearable traits, to Joan, was her habit +of calling the Major absurd comic-supplement pet names. But his dignity +seemed not to suffer from it. In fact he expanded visibly under the +treatment, like a dog whose ears are being tickled. + +"Your commands are law, my angel," he said. "Just how would you suggest +that I go about it?" + +Effie May ruminated, while the two Darcys watched her--with, however, +somewhat varying expressions. The Major appeared to be admiring, indeed +gloating over, the appearance she made at the head of her bountifully +appointed table, in a dress not niggardly in its display of her +bountifully appointed charms. His eye followed appreciatively the curve +of her plump arm as it disappeared into enveloping laces. + +Joan, on the other hand, watched her step-mother warily. There was +something about the woman she could not fathom, for all her surface +simplicity. She felt, beneath the other's careless, easy good-nature, a +certain force, a driving power, in the grip of which she and her father +were mere helpless puppets. Effie May would use them always for her own +ends--whatever those ends might be. Why had she chosen to saddle +herself, free and rich and independent as she was, with an impoverished +gentleman and his grown-up daughter? Certainly at that age, thought Joan +(Effie May was in the neighborhood of forty), people could not possibly +fall in love! No, there was something mysterious about her +step-mother.... + +"I have it," said the lady suddenly. "The Country Club! I see in the +society column that everything nowadays is going on at the Country Club. +We'll have to join that." + +"I believe," interposed Joan, flushing, "that people have to be invited +to join a club, don't they, Father?" + +"All right--We'll _be_ invited. Won't we, Dickums?" said the bride, with +a ravishing smile in the Major's direction. + +He rose to the occasion. "Certainly, my love," he replied. + +And they were invited. At any rate, a week or two later found the Darcy +family dining alone at the Country Club, among various other little +table groups, all of whom seemed to know each other intimately. + +To be in and not of this friendly assemblage filled Joan with that most +miserable of all sensations, crowd-loneliness. Even the Major wore a +rather fixed and nervous smile, and mentioned to his wife and daughter +at intervals that Louisville society had changed very much since he used +to frequent it. Only Effie May seemed quite unperturbed, gazing about +her smilingly, and tapping her slippered foot, and nodding her head in +time to the music; meeting the curious glances which strayed in their +direction with a frank interest of her own which might have seemed bold +if it were not so like a pleased child's. + +Joan, intercepting one or two of these glances, looked her step-mother +over critically, and to her relief found her less flamboyant than usual. +She was dressed in white--"Handsome white, not girly-girly muslin like +yours. I'm too stout for that," she had said wisely to Joan--The girl +reflected that it is difficult to look vulgar in white. Mrs. Darcy was +not appreciably different in appearance from many another rather +overdressed matron there, even in the matter of rouge and touched-up +hair. + +As for her father--Richard Darcy would have been a distinguished figure +in any assemblage he chose to enter, with his six feet of gallantly +carried avoirdupois, his finely modeled head, his gray mustache and +imperial concealing a mouth that might otherwise have left something to +be desired. He wore that night--and wore well--clothes of the palest +gray flannel, with socks and buckskin shoes to match, and a gray stripe +in his white tie, and a gray monogram embroidered upon the exquisite +cambric of his handkerchief. This was the parent who a few weeks ago she +had associated irrevocably in her mind with spots and frayed collars! +She found herself wishing that her mother could see him now--she would +be so proud of him!... + +To her own appearance Joan gave little consideration. She had discovered +that the great advantage of good clothes is that you no longer have to +think about them. She was quite unaware of the value in contrasts she +afforded--her small, dark, smoothly combed head lifted proudly on its +long neck, the awkward grace of her thin young body, the pale oval of +her face lit by surprisingly vivid eyes, of the sort that are dreamy and +shadowed until excitement turns them into soft blue fire. She was +excited that night, a little frightened. She did not smile at all, but +there was that about her lips--sensitive, wistful, faintly +drooping--that made more than one person who glanced at the Darcy table +wonder what the smile would be like if it came. + +When the dancing began, Effie May's exuberance could no longer contain +itself. + +"This is something like!" she cried. "This is what I call life! Come on, +Dick--'Waltz me around again, Willie, around, around, around!'" + +"But," protested the Major, "it is some time since I have waltzed, my +love--" + +"Never mind, you'll waltz with me! Anybody can dance with me. The boys +used to call me Lightfoot Ef--Oh, but you'll have to get a partner for +Joan, first, of course; I forgot we had a family along." + +The girl flushed, aghast at the thought of her father whirling in the +midst of that whirling throng. "No, no, Effie May, please--!" she urged. +"Let's just sit here quietly and look on." + +The other laughed aloud. "Naturally! That's what we've come to a dance +for, to sit against the wall and look on--Nonsense! Go and find your +child a partner, Dick, and hurry back. My feet just won't keep still." +She was humming gaily in time with the orchestra. + +The Major, gazing a little blankly at the crowd of strangers before him, +obediently went forth to do her bidding, and Effie May seized the +occasion to give a little womanly advice. + +"Don't you fret, Joan--remember there's as many young fellows in the +world crazy to know girls as there are girls crazy to know them. And +dearie"--her voice sank to a friendly whisper--"warm up to 'em a +little, can't you? Jolly 'em along. Hot air, you know, talk! No +matter what you say, just keep talking. That don't-touch-me, +butter-wouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth air may be all right with the nuns and +the old families but it won't go down with the men. Believe me, dearie! +I know." + +It was a well-meant effort, which had the effect of congealing the +already subdued Joan into something resembling a marble effigy. + +The Major shortly returned, bearing urbanely in his wake a blond young +man who seemed not too unwilling. + +"I want you to meet my wife, sir," he was saying. "I want to have the +pleasure of presenting you to my daughter. Fancy the coincidence, my +dears--this gentleman turns out to be the son of an old schoolmate!" + +Effie May welcomed them with enthusiasm. "Good for you! I had my money +on you, Dickums! Five minutes, and the son of a schoolmate! It's a +record!--Ta-ta, young people! Enjoy yourselves," was her valedictory as +she whirled the Major away, waving her hand over his shoulder. + +Joan stared aghast at the blond young man, who said, "She is an awfully +jolly sort, your mother, isn't she?" + +"Very jolly," agreed Joan faintly. "But she's not my mother." + +"Oh!" + +A silence fell. He seemed to be waiting for her to break it. She gulped, +and said in a firm voice, "Did you come to ask me to dance?" + +The young man indicated politely that such was his intention. + +"You couldn't very well help yourself, could you?" she remarked, and +suddenly burst out laughing--rather hysterical laughter in which the +young man joined embarrassedly. + +"Of course if you'd rather talk--" he murmured. + +Joan jumped to her feet. "Oh, but I wouldn't! I'd rather do _anything_ +than talk--no matter what I say, just talk, warm up to 'em, hot air--I +mean," she explained desperately, "I'm much too shy to talk!" + +"You don't sound very shy." + +"I know--they're the worst sort, the ones who hide it." + +They commenced silently to dance. Presently he confessed, "I'm +rather--shy, myself." + +"Goody!" she exclaimed with relief. "Then we needn't bother to talk at +all." + +They parted quite reluctantly when a whistle blew for the "circle"--a +useful innovation for breaking up relations, by whose aid Joan found +herself exchanging partners at intervals throughout the evening without +finding herself too long on the hands of any. She blessed the inventor +of the circle. Youth and a pair of winged feet came to her rescue, and +she forgot her strangeness in sheer joy of motion. The people she danced +with that night were not men; they were as trees walking, for all the +personal memory she kept of them. + +But when the music finally thumped itself out, and Effie May, a trifle +blown and moist about the brow, again resumed charge of her scattered +family, saying, "Well, dearie, you've had a pretty good time, haven't +you?"--Joan was able to answer with some surprise that she had. + +"Dancing," commented the Major, puffing, "is a very healthful exercise; +indeed, an esthetic exercise. The Greeks practised it, as I recall, +extensively, even in their riper years. My love, with a little +experience I think I shall easily master that step you call the fox +trot." + +"Sure you will," encouraged she who had been called Lightfoot Ef, +patting his cheek maternally. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +The Darcys' social career appeared to be well launched. Each Saturday +night found them at the Country Club, and no longer dining in +loneliness. Effie May speedily collected about her a group of congenial +spirits, for the most part young people, among whom she was extremely +popular--far more so than was Joan, who sometimes felt as if she were +the only elder present. Theirs was usually the most hilarious table in +the room. Corks popped freely, and there was much horse-play, and +throwing about of bread, and at a certain stage of the evening rather +frank persiflage in which, to Joan's relief, her step-mother took no +part. She laughed her cheery, plump laugh, and made no comment; but more +than once with a glance at her step-daughter, she managed quite deftly +to steer the conversation into other channels. Joan came to the +gratifying conclusion that her father's wife was afraid of her. + +The Major at his end of the table devoted himself assiduously to his +duties as host, seeing that glasses were filled, distributing gallant +remarks among the ladies, constantly signing tickets. He was in his +element; expanding, positively glowing, with hospitality. + +"Another cigar, my boy? Try this brand! Take several! Fill your pockets +with them. I can recommend them personally!" + +There came to be several brands which he could recommend personally, +several vintages as well. The waiters hovered about him like cherubim +about the throne of grace, and he knew them all by name, and took an +interest in their families. + +This lavish generosity, Joan reflected, was the spirit which gave the +old South its glamour, its traditions--to say nothing of its consequent +poverty. There was something rather fine and large about the Major's +apparent obliviousness of the fact that the money he spent so royally +did not belong to him. + +"If Effie May does not worry, why should I?" argued his daughter with +herself. Her father's affairs were no longer her concern; if indeed they +had ever been. But she could not help taking a certain uneasy interest +in them. + +"How do you happen to know enough people to invite to all these parties +of yours?" she asked Effie May, aware that the Darcy family was doing +rather more than its share of entertaining. + +"Oh, you don't have to know people well to ask 'em to parties," +explained the other innocently. "And once they eat with you, they're +your friends." + +"That depends upon what you give them to eat!" interjected the Major, +chuckling. + +It seemed a primitive conception of social relationships, but not on the +whole a false one. Joan thought of the Arab and his salt.... + +"Food," she wrote to Stefan Nikolai, "appears to be the Tie that Binds." + +"What about drink?" he inquired on a post-card. (They did a good deal of +this staccato correspondence, Joan liking to exchange deep thoughts with +him, as she expressed it, "while they were hot.") + +"Drink," she replied on another, "is the Tie that Loosens!..." + +Stefan Nikolai was the only one of her friends with whom she had found +courage to discuss her father's marriage. Writing things out to him was +almost like writing them out to herself. It served somehow to clear her +mind. It is probable that Mr. Nikolai, a student of various phases of +the human problem, got a good deal of valuable vicarious experience out +of young Joan's letters. Certainly he encouraged them. + +It was to him that she confided her discovery that social life is far +more pleasing after dinner than before. She was learning to count, as +surely as does many an experienced hostess, upon the help of the Tie +that Loosens. While she herself had not as yet developed her father's +palate for cocktails and fine vintages she appreciated their effect upon +her partners--for to her men so far were merely partners. + +It was after dinner that Joan's part of the evening began. Then, thanks +to the Tie that Loosens, there was no longer need to make banal +conversation nor to listen to it, no need to pretend friendly interest +in young men to whom she was incurably a stranger, no need of anything +but to yield herself to the music and the first pair of arms that +offered, and float away into Dreamland. + +There was something curiously sensuous to Joan about dancing. It acted +like a drug upon her fancy, stimulating, soothing. She was hardly aware +of whom she danced with, if he could dance. If he could not, she +stopped. This odd impersonality of hers was rather piquant to her +partners. Many a youth who was afraid to talk to "that quiet Darcy +girl--you never know what she's thinking about!"--was not afraid to +dance with her, whenever he got the chance. + +At such times Joan had her rare moments of beauty. With flushed face, +loosened hair, and wide, dreaming eyes, she was as graceful as one of +the three circling maidens in the Primavera--the one who looks wistfully +over her shoulder at the oblivious youth. Unfortunately her lot was cast +among people who did not think in terms of Botticelli. Her step-mother +wondered sometimes whether curling-tongs and perhaps a little rouge +would make her look more like other girls.... + +Sometimes people came to the club who attracted Joan's +attention--quieter people than Effie May's friends, more simply dressed, +who never seemed to join in the accentuated hilarity after dinner. Once +in such a group she recognized the girl who had eyed her aloofly on the +train coming home from boarding school. Joan suddenly yearned to do some +aloof eyeing on her own account, now that she was no longer shabby but +wore a frock as smart as any in the room. + +She watched her opportunity, and followed the stranger into the +dressing-room with some such truculent idea in view; but was disarmed by +the courtesy with which the other made room for her at a mirror, where +they powdered their noses side by side in amity. As she was leaving the +room, however, she heard the aloof one murmur to a friend: "What a lot +of strange people one sees at this club nowadays! I wonder where they +all come from? It's getting very mixed." + +Joan went white with anger. She struggled with the temptation to explain +proudly that she was not a strange person, that her name entitled her to +any society she chose to enter, that it was her step-mother who was +"mixed," not she.... + +And then she remembered that it was only thanks to her step-mother that +she happened to be there at all. + +For the moment this encounter with the enemy took away Joan's heart for +dancing. Crowd-loneliness got her by the throat. Was there always to be +just one of her, and so many of everybody else? + +She slipped out on to a terrace that overlooked a valley with the great +river gleaming far off, still holding some faint glow of the sunset's +aftermath. There was a bench at the far end, lost in shadow, and she was +about to seat herself there when she saw that it was already occupied. + +"Oh," she said, drawing back. "I didn't notice you!" + +"Women rarely do," remarked a plaintive voice with a smile in it. "I'm +used to that. And yet I notice them, dreadfully!" + +Joan laughed a little, and retreated. "I won't disturb you," she +murmured; but the voice held her. + +"Oh, please! Please do. I want to be disturbed. I simply came here to +see my moonrise." A shadowy arm pointed out a dim glow over the trees to +eastward. + +"Why _your_ moonrise, especially?" + +"By right of discovery. I seem to be the only person aware of it.... May +I share it with you?" + +"You are sure you wouldn't rather see it alone?" + +"Goodness gracious!" cried the voice quite querulously, "what human +being ever wanted to watch a moonrise alone?" + +Joan chuckled, and sat down to the first conversation she had enjoyed +since her last one with Stefan Nikolai--one of the few real +conversations, she thought afterwards, in her life. + +Yet it was difficult to remember the many things they talked about. +Smoke, for one. He pointed out the dim loveliness of the city below, +towers and battlements and the airy span of a bridge against the +gray-gold sky. + +"'Many-storied Camelot town,'" he said, musing. "Without the shrouding +smoke, what would it be? Factory chimneys, iron smoke-stacks, a +filtration plant--Ugliness, ugliness! Yet there are people in that town +who want to rid themselves of those billowing mists of rose and violet +and silver." + +"I suppose," said Joan, "the beauty of smoke depends upon whether you're +down in it, getting smuts on your nose, or looking on from a hilltop." + +"A question of perspective, you think? Hmnn--yes. Well, then" he said +reasonably, "by all means _get_ your perspective. Stick to the +hilltop--especially at sunset." + +"We haven't all got wings to reach a hilltop with, you see. Nor yet +automobiles." + +"I haven't, myself," he said. "I use trolley-cars.... Did it ever occur +to you what a marvel the trolley-car is? For a nickel--or at most a +dime--all Nature is yours to command; beechwoods in their autumn field +of the cloth of gold; little whispering streams breaking their winter +silence, fireflies dancing--to the tune of the 'Merry Widow' waltz," (as +that melody of the moment made itself audible from the house beyond). +"What a twilight! Fireflies, an afterglow, and the moonrise set to +music, all at once," he said under his breath. "And some one to share +them with!" + +Joan was silent, flattered by the knowledge that this whimsical +gentleman was letting her into his thoughts. + +"The beauty of such a moment is that one never loses it," he mused. "One +puts it away as people press flowers in books, to be looked at +when--when pleasant things need remembering. I thank God for a mind well +stocked with beautiful occasions!" + +"Wild Evenings I Have Known," murmured Joan, frivolously, because for +some reason she was rather touched. + +He nodded, "With wild people in them. Like you." + +"Me! Wild?" + +"Oh, I know on the surface you're a demure, well-behaved young miss, but +underneath--good gracious! You'd shock these people to death!"--he +indicated certain hilarious couples who had waltzed onto the terrace +near them. "Yes, you're quite untamed, my dear. Wild as a--chipmunk." + +Joan leaned toward him, "How did you guess?" + +"I've watched you dance. And then--well, I've never quite got used to +the cage myself, perhaps." He began to hum under his breath a tuneless +little ditty: + + "It is a very dreadful thing + To be so fat a child, + To have to sit around all day + And yet to feel so wild." + +"At least," laughed Joan, "I'm not fat!" + +"No!" he said soberly, "never get fat. It is the beginning of the +end.... By fat I mean old. And cautious. Ugh!" + +How the conversation came about to apple-trees, Joan never was sure; but +he told her about one he had discovered somewhere in the deep woods, all +in bloom, a little old gnarled affair hidden among giant first growth +sycamores and elms and beeches. + +"An apple-tree lost in the woods! How do you suppose it got away from +civilization?" wondered the girl. + +"Some bird, perhaps; or Johnny Appleseed." + +"Who was he?" + +"Fancy living in Kentucky without knowing about the first and greatest +of our pioneers! He was a daft old creature--an innocent, as the kind +phrase goes--who used to wander away from the settlement where he lived +into the wilderness, scattering apple seeds. All over this Ohio Valley +he journeyed, sowing his orchards for the benefit of those who were to +follow. The Indians let him pass, the wild animals did not harm him; +only his friends locked him up whenever they could catch him, because it +seemed such a silly thing to do. Friends are that way ... Years later, +when the pioneers fought their way at last over the mountains to stay, +they found here and there apple-trees blossoming and fruiting in the +great, lonely wilderness; and wherever that happened their wives made +them build cabins and settle down, for of all things that grow an +apple-tree most suggests home. So mad old Johnny Appleseed was the +founder of many cities." + +"And yet there is no monument to him!" + +"Except the cities...." + +Here a young man appeared to claim Joan for the next dance--the blond +young man with whom she had commenced her dancing career, and who had +formed quite a habit of looking for her whenever the music played. + +She rose with reluctance. "I wish _you'd_ come in and dance with me," +she said to her new friend. "I'm sure you could!" + +"I'm sure I could, too," he replied, "if I hadn't my body with me. As it +is, I'll just sit out here and make believe I'm dancing with you--In a +starlit glade. With the other young nymphs and dryads..." the whimsical +voice followed her. + +The blond young man stared. "Of all the assorted nuts!" he remarked, +when they were out of earshot. + +"Yes--but who is he?" demanded Joan eagerly. + +"Something on the stock exchange. I see him there every day." + +"The stock exchange!" + +"Yes. Oh, he writes poems and things for the papers, too, I think. Quite +a literary guy." He mentioned the name. + +It is a name known and remembered wherever there are moonrises and +fireflies, smoke against the sunset, apple-trees in bloom--all the +everyday lovely things people forget to see unless there are poets to +remind them... + +It gave Joan quite a new zest in living to realize that at any moment, +even at Country Clubs, it is possible to run across a poet. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Richard Darcy was accepting the change that had come into his life much +as he had accepted others of a less fortunate trend. He had become at +last what Nature had always intended him to be, one of the world's +chosen, a rich man--or, what was even better because less troublesome, +the husband of a rich woman. He was also once more an honored citizen of +his native commonwealth--where he had not always been entirely an +honored citizen, owing to one of the unfortunate mistakes to which youth +is liable. There had been some disagreement with an early employer about +the right of employees to divert the firm's funds, temporarily of +course, to private uses. Only family influence had prevented this +misunderstanding from resulting in truly disastrous consequences, which +he shuddered to this day to contemplate. But it had prevented; and the +early employer was dead (as Richard Darcy had taken pains to ascertain +before returning to Louisville), and the few who knew of this painful +episode at the time appeared to have forgotten it. + +Very good! He was quite willing to forget it himself. It was Richard +Darcy's creed that a gentleman takes whatever comes in his stride, +without too many backward glances; and his stride was just now adapting +itself gracefully to the one-step. + +Joan, watching her father sometimes with a faint recrudescence of pride +in his sheer good looks, decided that he was the only stomached person +she had seen who could perform the one-step without loss of dignity. He +footed the measure indulgently, as a bishop or a cardinal might have +footed it, with an air of spiritual detachment, as it were, while yet +seeming to receive and to bestow a priceless privilege. Even lively +young girls liked to dance with the Major. It made them feel uplifted. +If he pressed the hand or the waist of his prettier partners more +closely than necessary, the pressure seemed almost impersonal, a mere +tribute to a sex which he could not but regard with tenderness, being +himself a husband and a father. + +In addition to this valuable social acquirement, the Major further +fortified his popularity by inventing and promoting (uncommercially, of +course) a beverage which shortly bade fair to make him famous, and which +was christened by grateful habitues of the Country Club the "Dick Fizz." +Its ingredients were--but that is a secret not at the author's disposal. +Suffice it to say that the "Dick Fizz" achieved results that were all +and more than could be expected of it. (Among others, the Major's +election to a certain gentlemen's club which had hitherto remained +annoyingly unaware of him. So much for the power of the Tie that +Loosens!) + +It was thanks to the "Dick Fizz," too, that there presently came about +between Richard Darcy and his daughter that heart-to-heart interview +which had been postponing itself from week to week, with the tacit +consent of both parties; an interview dreaded by Joan perhaps even less +than by her father. + +They were returning one night from one of their most successful +evenings; Joan as usual on the front seat beside the chauffeur, where +she might enjoy the rush of the cool night air upon her face, and hear +as little as possible of the billing and cooing of the honeymooners in +the tonneau behind. There seemed more of this than usual, little +giggling exclamations and audible embraces which made the girl wince and +the chauffeur grin surreptitiously. + +"Really, Father!" protested Joan over her shoulder. There was something +physically nauseating to her in those amorous echoes from the tonneau. +No wonder servants laughed! It made of love a travesty and a mocking. + +She was glad when they reached home. The Major stepped out gallantly to +assist the ladies, but miscalculated his impetus, and after a series of +complicated maneuvers brought up seated upon the curbstone. The +chauffeur burst into an uncontrollable guffaw, in which his mistress +heartily joined. + +"Oh, you Dick Fizz!" she laughed, wiping her eyes. "I knew it would get +you yet. _Look_ at your funny papa, dearie! Lit up like a +Christmas-tree!" + +The Major murmured something reprovingly about the duties of +hospitality, which he found some difficulty in pronouncing; but once +upon his feet, he gave an arm to each of them and managed the steps +without further mishap. + +In the hall Joan, who had not laughed, said to her step-mother in a low +voice, "Is he--drunk?" + +"Oh, not enough to hurt," replied the lady, still laughing. It occurred +to Joan that she herself was a little flushed and expansive. "I can +handle him, all right. Don't you worry! I always know a gentleman by the +way he carries his liquor." + +"Do you?" said Joan. + +"Sure thing! And Major's a perfect gentleman always. Don't you fret." + +Joan mounted quietly to her room, and undressed in the dark. She did not +want to see her face in the mirror, afraid of the disgust, the loathing, +that must be reflected there--Her father--drunk! The man to whom her +mother had given her love and her life, tipsily furnishing amusement for +a woman who judged gentlemen by the way they carried their liquor!... + +She recalled one other time when she had seen her father in his present +condition. She remembered her mother's stricken, tragic face as she +hurried him out of sight, explaining tremulously, "Daddy's ill, darling. +No games with Daddy to-night--he's ill." + +"But he wants to play! Look, mamma, he _wants_ to play!" the small Joan +had insisted, to no avail. + +And when this strangely interesting Daddy was safe in bed, with Ellen +Neal mounting guard, Joan had been hurried out to the nearest church +(which happened to be a Catholic one, for Mary's was a casual sort of +religion that boasted neither creed nor prejudice); and there, before a +statue where little lamps burned, the child had prayed hard, as she was +bid, that her father might never be ill in just that way again. + +"God may listen to you, even if He's tired of listening to me!" the +mother had whispered, desperately. + +It was because God had listened that Joan was sent later to a Catholic +convent. Mary Darcy's was not the nature to forget favors; and it +occurred to her that there might be worse protectors for a girl who must +one day be motherless than Our Lady of Sorrows. Not every faith is +strong enough to go through life without some creed to cling to. Mary +had offered her child what she could. + +Lying there in the darkness, Joan understood. She wished that she might +have been able to take what her mother offered. She yearned for the +anodyne of simple, unquestioning prayer, for the mesmeric comfort that +comes to the believing from the slipping of rosary beads between the +fingers; above all, for the right to kneel unrecognized in a quiet +confessional and learn from some priest wiser than she in the ways of +men where her duty lay and how she was to follow it. The confessional is +perhaps the secret of the hold the oldest of Christian churches keeps +upon a world which would seem to have outgrown it. That is a +self-reliant nature indeed which does not sometimes feel the need of +guidance at once human and detached. + +But Joan's creed and confessional alike were contained in her troubled +young head; and where a happier woman would have wept and said her +prayers, she set herself sternly to the task of thinking. It seemed to +her that throughout the past weeks she had been shirking an issue, +deliberately drugging her wits with anything that came to hand. Now she +faced conditions squarely. There must be no more drifting. + +She focused an unsparing vision upon her father. Already there were +changes apparent in him, signs of deterioration not entirely physical. +His features seemed slightly blurred from their fine chiseling, there +was a relaxed look about the lips and chin, about the very poise of his +figure. He had lost a little of that indefinable something which gave +him distinction, even in the days when the women of his family tried in +vain to keep him pressed and unspotted. Prosperity was not going to be +good for Richard Darcy. + +Joan pronounced ruthless judgment upon her father: + +"He's done for!" + +And, as Ellen had warned her, it was none of her business.... What then +was her business? Clearly, to keep from being "done for" herself. + +She saw quite clearly that she had been in danger of this. There was +something curiously enervating about the atmosphere of her step-mother's +house, a _laissez-faire_ that was almost--the girl sought for the word +and decided upon "lascivious." Luxury, ease, pleasure--these were the +ends for which her step-mother strove--or rather accomplished without +undue striving, an ability to which the girl gave full due. She knew +that it must take more than mere money to keep so elaborate a household +running without apparent effort. The servants were efficient and +unobtrusive, the accounts scrupulously kept, every nook and cranny clean +and in order. Even Ellen Neal, who knew whereof she spoke, admitted that +the ex-Mrs. Calloway was a housekeeper of parts. But... + +Joan tried conscientiously to fathom the meaning of her "but." She +decided that the house was too like its mistress--over-bathed, +over-perfumed and dressed and manicured--to be quite nice. The windows +were too fluffy with lace, the drawing-room too pretty and satiny, the +library too red. ("Why is it," she had written to Stefan Nikolai, "that +people who never open a book invariably have a red library?") + +A fantastic thought came to her. She wondered whether those strange +houses which are sometimes whispered of even among convent girls, those +palaces of horror where women's bodies are bought and sold, might not +perhaps resemble this home to which her father had brought her ... + +Then she smiled at herself. Vulgar, her step-mother might be; hopelessly +underbred; doubtless in some previous manifestations a shop-girl, a +dressmaker; possibly one of those anomalous beings known in race-towns +as "race-horse women." But she was unmistakably respectable. There was +not a picture on her walls, nor a novel on the shelves of the red +library, which was not, as she herself once remarked to Joan +complacently, "perfectly refined." The girl recalled her evident +uneasiness when sometimes at the dinner-table the talk had waxed a +little too free. She did her step-mother the justice to believe her a +quite decent woman. + +Perhaps the curious sense of enervation was due only to the heat of +midsummer in a Southern city. Now and then the elder Darcys spoke +vaguely of going away, only to decide that it was too much trouble. It +was easier to stay where they were. In a Kentucky July, one follows the +line of least resistance. + +Joan, like the others, slept late into the mornings, and had her coffee +in bed, or went down to the dining-room for it with a negligee over her +nightgown. (Her father had become quite reconciled to negligees, which +at first startled him, accustomed as he was to the neat morning ginghams +of his Mary.) Sometimes she found him departing reluctantly for the +mysterious place he called the Office. Later, people would arrive +connected with the rites of the toilet--the hair-dresser, the manicure, +the masseuse--a chatty person who performed on Effie May what she called +her "facial"; and other things. Cleopatra herself could have devoted no +more time to the care of her body than did the ex-Mrs. Calloway. + +"You've got it to do if you're risin' forty and like to eat," she +explained once to Joan, simply. + +After luncheon, which was brought on a tray--a large tray--to wherever +it happened to be convenient, the ladies once more resumed nightgowns, +if indeed they had ever discarded them, and napped and read until the +sun was low in the sky; when the house like the city woke into +animation, and they prepared to fare forth like fireflies to the evening +revel. Then there were automobile drives to little beer-gardens, where +they ate and drank and sat about among whitewashed tree-trunks, feeling +Bohemian; pleasant moonlight excursions up the Ohio in launches, with a +picnic provided which consisted largely of thermos-bottles; and the +Country Club, always the Country Club. Joan wondered what people had +managed to do with themselves in summer before the days of Country +Clubs. + +It was a life that somehow suggested the Orient, women of the harem +coming forth at sunset to bask on the roofs of the houses; a placid +existence; aimless, perhaps, but pleasant enough. Joan was puzzled to +find the harm in it. Yet that harm was there, she knew. The touch of +Puritanism in the girl told her that to live from day to day with no +duty but pleasure made of pleasure something akin to vice.... And often +in the midst of this harem life she remembered almost with passion that +out beyond her shuttered windows, beyond the clangor of trolley-cars and +the hum and clatter of the dirty streets, was summer--summer, the +loveliest of the year's phases; leaf-shadows on wimpling water, lush +meadows sparkling with the sunrise dew, green-gold glades of the wood +delicious with the smell of warm pine-needles; all the world at fullest +bloom, open like the heart of a rose, waiting. + +It was a sort of nostalgia that took her then for the country she had +never known, not Country Club country, nor the conscious, well-kept +wildness of the parks which give the old river town its only claim to +beauty--but simple wood and meadow and field, where homely folk live +close to the soil they till, concerned with crops and the breeding +season. It was this country her father had meant when he bragged about +Kentucky. It is this country which, deep down under the surface things, +means home to all people of Saxon blood, no matter how far astray they +wander.... + +And as she lay there, as if her wistful thoughts had conjured it into +being, came a whisper of song from the leaves of the magnolia tree just +outside her window; a murmur that died away, and began again, and rose +and soared, melody on wings, above the clang of a trolley-car and the +honk of passing motors. It was a mocking-bird, that voice of the +Southern summer, singing in the glare of the arc-lamps, mistaking it +perhaps for moonlight. + +Joan tiptoed to the window and listened, an aching lump in her throat. +It was her first mocking-bird; she had not known they sang at night. + +"You lovely thing!" she whispered to it. "What are you doing in this +place?... And what am _I_?" + +Then and there she made her plans to get away. + +The thought frightened her a little. She had, despite the ups and downs +of her father's fortunes, led hitherto a very sheltered life. +Fortunately there was her mother's money, hers whenever she chose to ask +for it. She would not be quite penniless. But where to go? + +She thought first of the Misses Darcy, her father's cousins, who had +been most affectionate and kind, particularly since her father's +remarriage. Sometimes she wondered whether this was because they +sympathized with her, or (with a touch of her new cynicism) because they +did not. Effie May had been very generous to the Misses Darcy, remarking +once that she knew what it was to be poor herself. They came frequently +to dine at her lavish table; they appeared occasionally in _chic_ black +costumes, as good as new, which Joan recognized as having served to +mourn the late Mr. Calloway; the limousine was often at their disposal; +and a limousine with a liveried chauffeur was a touch of distinction +hitherto lacking to the Darcy fortunes, even at their palmiest. + +Joan suddenly doubted whether her father's cousins would welcome her +under their roof at the risk of alienating that limousine. She did not +blame them--poor, anxious ladies to whom life had not been very kind. +She simply realized that they were of her father's blood, not her +mother's. + +Her mother's people she did not know. Mary Darcy had managed somehow in +her wanderings to loosen all the ties that bound her to her youth. It +was as if she had deliberately lost herself, hidden herself away with +husband and child from the loving eyes that are too quick to see.... It +was the sort of pride Richard Darcy was quite incapable of +understanding, though pride was a word often upon his lips. But Mary's +daughter understood. Never through her should the quiet tragedy of her +mother's life be revealed to those from whom her mother had chosen to +hide it. + +She wished that Stefan Nikolai were not a man; or that, being a man, he +had a home to which she might have invited herself. But he was a +confirmed wanderer, and Joan felt that a young lady companion, desirable +though she might be as a solace for his declining years, would +undoubtedly hamper his movements. + +It left only Ellen Neal to rely upon. Perhaps there would be enough +money to take a little flat somewhere, with Ellen Neal for servant and +chaperone. A bachelor maid, with a latch-key!--the prospect was rather +alluring. But not in Louisville. She could not leave her father's home +and set up an establishment of her own in the same town without creating +"talk," and, to Joan's training, "talk" was the one thing impossible. + +They would have to go away somewhere, she and Ellen. And study +something, she decided vaguely. Music, art, social service--whatever it +was people did study. Her eye began to kindle. She was the true child of +Richard Darcy, rolling stone by nature and profession; and to such, "the +grass is always greener down the road." New York, Boston, swam before +her dreamy vision; even London, Paris, Rome.... + +She brought herself back to the ungrateful consideration of ways and +means. She feared the money would not run to much in the way of travel. +"A mere pittance," her father had once scornfully called it. But she +knew, or guessed, that all three of them had managed to live on the +income from this pittance during many a period when the Major's star was +not in the ascendant, and she thought that what had provided, however +scantily, for three might be made to provide well for herself and Ellen. +She wished that she had asked questions at the time her mother's will +was read to her. It had seemed so unimportant then. What was hers +belonged surely just as much to her father, guardian for the little +property until such time as she chose to ask him for it. + +Now that the time had come, Joan faced it with some dread. How could +they talk about money, she and he--about her mother's money? It seemed +indelicate, unfeeling, a desecration of sacred things. Nevertheless she +faced it. She solemnly promised herself that not another day should pass +without a complete understanding between herself and her father. + +Possibly she was the only one of Richard Darcy's creditors who ever +managed to put this promise into execution. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +In the heat of the following afternoon, while Effie May dozed unaware +beneath an electric fan, with a box of chocolates convenient to her +drowsy hand, Joan slipped out of the house very quietly and went down +town. She had an odd feeling of exhilaration, as if she had already +escaped--from what, it would have been difficult to say. + +More than one glance of approval followed her slim figure as it flitted +through the sweltering streets, the dark and grimy corridors of the +office building which Richard Darcy had chosen to honor with his +patronage. This, thought patient men as she passed, was as a girl should +look on a July afternoon, all in cool white from her silver-buckled +pumps to the wide hat with a big lace butterfly perched airily upon it. +Surely it was fitting, they thought, that men should slave at their +desks through the endless summer days in order that visions such as this +might flit about the world in dainty idleness; and forthwith applied +gallant noses once more to the grindstone. In the South the idea of +economic independence for women will never be popular. + +Joan, under these friendly glances, was conscious of blossoming into +real prettinees. It was not the first time she had got this pleasant +little sensation out of so simple a matter as going down town. She +wondered whether in any other city of the world it was possible for a +girl to walk the streets alone, receiving from every man who passed--be +he gentleman, clerk, coal-heaver, or small, knowing news-boy--glances of +commendation which were neither impertinent, nor bold, nor even +personal, but simply, as it were expert; an appraisal which flattered +without offense. It was as if, at the sight of a pretty woman, the town +as one man lifted its glass to the toast: + +"The Ladies, God bless 'em!" + +It was this spirit, she thought, which had perhaps given Kentucky its +reputation for feminine pulchritude. To be a beauty is not difficult +where every one encourages the idea, where feminine charm is regarded as +in itself an end and a purpose, to be fortified by every means at the +command of art or nature.... Joan fluttered along with the best, +modestly unconscious of the eyes that paid her homage, but aware +nevertheless of her occasional reflection in plate-glass windows; and it +should be recorded that before she went to her father's office she made +the purchase of a stick of pink lip-pomade and a cake of solid +face-powder, with a little puff and mirror included. Why these articles +should have given her increased courage for an interview with her +parent, is difficult to state; but the fact remains that they did. + +She came presently to a doorway upon which was printed in large gold +lettering: RICHARD DARCY. LOANS AND INVESTMENTS. Joan was secretly +impressed. Perhaps the Office was not the mere figure of speech she had +sometimes fancied it. + +She knocked. No answer came. Listening, she heard inside the familiar +whirr of an electric fan mingling with a sound she could not for the +moment place--a buzzing as of many flies, but rising and falling at more +rhythmic intervals. + +She turned the knob. Within, drawn by an open window through which might +be glimpsed the broad Ohio rolling drowsily, stood a decrepit Morris +chair which Joan recognized as an old friend; wherein lay sprawled at +comfortable length the Major. At his elbow stood a bottle and a glass, +both empty. His handsome nose, forgetting for the moment all +acquaintance with the grindstone, was tilted at the angle of least +resistance, and from it issued the rhythmic buzzing that had puzzled his +child. + +"Daddy!" she said reluctantly. Somehow the Major asleep, with a plump +leg draped over the arm of his chair and his mouth slightly open, made +up in disarming appeal what he lost in impressiveness. He was like a +gray-haired little boy, tired out with playing. + +But, "Father!" said Joan more loudly. "Wake up, please. I've come to see +you on business." + +He opened his eyes with a jerk. "Eh? What's that, what's that, what's +that? Tut, tut! Must have dozed off. What's that?" The eyes tried to +close again, but he was firm with them, and presently recognized his +daughter. "That you, Dollykins? Well, well, well! Come down to pay Dad a +visit, eh? That's nice, that's nice!" + +Suddenly he got to his feet and brought her a chair, reaching at the +same time for his coat. Richard Darcy could not possibly have remained +in a lady's presence coatless, no matter what the temperature. Her +attention was caught by the garment into which he struggled, muttering +apologies the while. + +"Why, Dad," she cried, "_what_ are you putting on?" + +It was not the immaculate gray flannel in which he had started that +morning for the marts of commerce, but a thread-bare, shapeless, densely +spotted garment which Joan recognized with a pang. + +"Your old second-best!" she exclaimed. + +Her father grinned a little sheepishly. "Why--why yes, I keep it here as +an office coat, to save the others, you see. I'm sort of used to it," he +added explanatorily. "It seems to fit into my curves. The new ones +don't. One is supposed to fit into theirs!" + +Joan patted the sleeve of the second-best affectionately. Her eyes were +moist. She felt nearer to her father than she had for weeks. He had kept +the old chair out of their home equipment; he had kept the old coat. Was +he after all not so obliviously content as he seemed in his fine new +surroundings? Did he remember, too, and was he homesick as herself for +the shabby days when he and she and her mother had made a little world +of their own, happy in spite of everything? + +She said with a smile, "You'd better not let Effie May catch you wearing +such a garment!" + +"Heaven forbid!" he exclaimed. "I may confess that it was with some +difficulty I rescued this coat from the ashman, to whom your mother had +given it." + +But his use of the phrase, "your mother," hardened Joan out of her +momentary tenderness. Invariably he spoke of Effie May to her as "your +mother," and of her real mother only as "Mary." The girl was too young +to realize that this may have been because the name meant things to him +which the phrase never would. Mary was something more to Richard Darcy +than Joan's mother.... + +"I have come to talk to you," said Joan, "about business, Father." + +"Business?" The Major's eyebrows lifted. Business meant money, and the +ladies of his family never cared to talk about money! remarked those +eyebrows. Though, to be sure, they sometimes found themselves under the +necessity of asking for it--His hand went instinctively to his pocket. + +"I suppose you are out of pin-money?" he interpreted. "Stupid of me not +to have realized it, Dollykin, though I sent you rather a good deal to +the convent, you remember?" He brought his hand out, filled with silver. +"There! Spend it 'not wisely but too well'--not that one need give any +girl advice on that subject! Dear, dear, how women can make the money +fly!" humorously sighed the Major (whose debts had probably been paid by +women ever since he had been old enough to make them). + +"I should like a chance," said Joan soberly, "to make the money fly, +Father. My money, you know." + +He stared at her, really bewildered. + +She refreshed his memory, flushing. "The money Mother left, with you as +guardian--that I was to have whenever I asked--" + +"Not that she ever expected such a contingency to arrive!" commented the +Major with a sudden accession of stiffness. "You are not of age yet, my +child." + +"Was there any provision in her will about my being of age?" + +"No," he admitted. "Owing to what was of course purely a technical +error, I think there was not. My poor Mary was quite unaccustomed to the +terminology of wills, naturally, and as she and a servant drew it up +between them, you may imagine--" he shrugged indulgently. + +Joan moistened her lips. She was finding the interview even more +difficult than she had imagined. Her father's manner managed to put her +somehow in the wrong. But she held to her purpose. + +"I do not think it was an error, Father. Mother wasn't the sort who says +things she doesn't mean. I believe she foresaw that--that something +might occur which would make me wish to be independent, even if I was +not of age. She could trust my judgment a little. She knew that I'd +never dream of asking for her property unless I had a good reason--I +have a good reason now, Father--I want to be independent." Her voice +trailed off miserably. What she really wanted was to put her arms about +his neck and have a good cry. + +Unconsciously the Major discouraged the impulse. "What is this nonsense +about independence?" he demanded. "My dear Joan, you sound like a New +Woman!" On his lips the phrase was a scathing denunciation. + +Joan explained faintly that she wanted to go away somewhere, to live.... + +The Major was honestly aghast. "Leave your father's roof?" he cried +incredulously. "My child! What is this folly? Never with Richard Darcy's +consent shall a daughter of his leave her father's roof except for the +roof of her lawful husband." (In moments of emotion, the Major was +always liable to these attacks of circumlocution.) + +Joan pointed out to him, still faintly but determinedly, that it was not +her _father's_ roof she wished to leave.... + +Even under his armor of complacency this shot told. He winced. "Have you +been made to feel that? Has my wife ever caused you to believe that you +were an unwelcome member of our household?" he demanded sharply, in a +voice that boded ill for the present Mrs. Darcy if such were the case. + +"No, Father! I shall never give her the chance to make me feel +unwelcome. That is why I want my mother's money." + +The Major toyed with a pen, and seemed to be thinking. "I am not at all +sure," he said presently, "that the will Mary left was legal, my dear; +whether it would stand in the courts--" + +"What does that matter?" interrupted Joan, "when you and I know what +Mother meant?" Something impelled her to add, "And when Ellen Neal +knows, too?" + +The Major looked quickly at her, and looked away. "Perhaps you are not +aware that regardless of any will whatsoever the law entitles me to +one-third of my wife's estate?" + +Joan flushed with an embarrassment that was more for him than for +herself. "You're welcome to it, Daddy; you're perfectly welcome to it, +of course! It isn't that I want to take anything away from _you_. +It's--oh, won't you _please_ understand, and not be hurt with me?" she +implored. "I only want to know how much there is, how much money I can +count on getting every month to live on. Just income, you know. I +wouldn't think of touching the--principal, don't you call it?" + +Richard Darcy rose abruptly and went to the window. It was a fine view +that spread before him--a soothing, mellifluous landscape of golden +river and hazy blue Indiana hills. Indiana, as he sometimes remarked, +was delightful as a background though undesirable as a dwelling-place. +He said so now. He had taken this office entirely for its view, he +informed his daughter. The Major patronized Nature extensively, and +believed that all gentlemen should do so; especially Kentucky gentlemen, +to whom Nature has been so particularly lavish. + +Meanwhile Joan waited. He recalled that her mother used to have the same +habit of silent waiting. Some minds seem incapable of pleasant +digression. + +He sighed, and resumed the subject under discussion. His manner had +changed somewhat, however. He spoke in the persuasive, frank, +"he's-a-good-fellow-and-'twill-all-be-well" tones which he reserved for +directors' boards, stockholders' meetings, and like courts of last +resort, when things unpleasant had to be told and he was the one to tell +them. It should be said in all justice that he rarely side-stepped these +meetings, as he might have done, and allowed the unpleasantnesses to +disclose themselves through others. Nobody could say that Richard Darcy +was a coward. + +"Well, about this little business affair of ours, Dollykins--Of course +the property was never large, though properly invested it might have +brought us in a decent income instead of the trifle Mary was content +with. The merest pittance I assure you, the merest pittance!" + +Joan nodded. She had heard before about the mereness of the pittance. + +"Often during my wife's lifetime I took occasion to point this out to +her. The question of securities and investments being one to which I +have devoted the greater part of my business career, I think I may say +without undue vanity that I am qualified to give advice on such matters! +But Mary had a certain sentimental reluctance about changing investments +which her father had made for her, and sentiment is a thing which I am +always able to respect." + +("Good for mother!" said Joan to herself.) + +"However, after her death--" he paused to pay his Mary the tribute of a +sincere though dramatic sigh--"I began at once to look about for a means +of providing my little girl with more affluence than had hitherto been +at my disposal. The best," he smiled, patting her hand, "is none too +good for my Dollykins! And an opportunity shortly presented itself, a +quite exceptional opportunity, not only of increasing our income +materially, but of assisting to develop the resources of my native +commonwealth." He expanded suddenly with public spirit. "What a State! +Fortunes have been made here, but nothing compared with the fortunes +which shall be made. People have dared to call us a 'pauper +State'--'pauper,' if you please!--with wealth at our command, untouched, +unguessed resources lying just beneath the surface of this beautiful +soil, which would make Aladdin's cave look like--like--" + +"Thirty cents," supplied Joan, in an anxious effort to get to the point. +"I know, Father!--but what did you buy with the money?" + +"Oil-fields!" he said largely. "Oil-fields! Or, to be exact, stock in a +company formed for the purpose of purchasing oil-fields, in which by +good chance I happened to be let in on the ground floor (as we say in +commercial parlance, Dollykins. It is not an expression I should care to +hear you use.) You are the part possessor of something like one thousand +acres of virgin Kentucky soil!" He leaned back in his chair and beamed +on her. + +"Am I?" said Joan dubiously. "It sounds promising." + +Something of her father's elation disappeared in a sigh. "Promising, +yes!--but so far only promising. Oil has been struck all about us, but +none as yet on our holdings. I have by no means given up hope, of +course." (Richard Darcy had never given up hope in any of his lost +causes.) "But I must confess that I have been disappointed. Worse than +disappointed. For a while I was--well, really, desperate!" He smiled +deprecatingly. + +The smile did not for the moment touch Joan's heart; but it told her the +truth she had dreaded. "Father! You mean you have _lost_ the +money?--There's no income left?" + +"Income? Alas, no. And even the principal--Still, the land is there, one +thousand acres of it, and that cannot escape!" he added, brightening. +"There were times when I thought of going to live on the land. Though my +experience of agriculture has been practically nil, many of our +ancestors were planters and stock-breeders, and, as you know, I am a +firm believer in the power of heredity. However, I was credibly informed +that the property would not lend itself to agriculture. I was at my +wit's end. Fancy the position!" (The Major was beginning rather to enjoy +his woe in the retrospect.) "Here was I not as yet firmly established on +my feet (as we say in business parlance); deprived alike of helpmate and +companion, with my child at an expensive boarding-school where I had +promised my dead wife she should remain until the completion of her +education--and I without a dollar I could call my own! Frightful! There +were certain obligations to tradespeople as well.... I am sure I do not +know how for a while Ellen Neal managed to provide us with necessities!" +(Joan thought grimly that she knew how.) "It became necessary +to--ah!--realize on my possessions. First the silver went--I daresay you +have wondered what has become of our family silver, my child? It was +sacrificed to keep a roof over your head. Then the more valuable pieces +of furniture--" + +"Oh, don't!" groaned the girl in a sort of angry pity, "Why didn't you +tell me? Oh, _poor_ father!" + +"You may well say, 'poor father.' It was for you I suffered most, for +you I was afraid. A man alone can always manage to subsist in some +fashion, but a man with a helpless female dependent on him--! Thank +heaven," he said earnestly, "you can never know what it is to be a +father! I thought constantly, 'What a home to bring a young lady into! +What a situation for my child!' I may confess that I prayed--no +gentleman need be ashamed to pray when he is in distress. And then like +light in darkness the answer came to me. At whatever cost to myself, +whatever sacrifice, I must provide comfort for Joan, a home suitable for +the reception of a young gentlewoman. There was nothing left to offer +except--myself. Therefore--" + +His face shone with a noble sadness, and he waited for the generosity of +his sacrifice to sink in. + +"You mean," said Joan slowly, "that it was for my sake you married Mrs. +Calloway!" + +He bowed assent. "Why else? She is an excellent woman, a kind and +excellent and devoted woman. But under happier circumstances, a man of +my position, my traditions, my--shall I say fastidiousness?--" He +shrugged, and allowed the ungallant suggestion to complete itself +without words. + +"I think," said Joan quietly, "we'd better not say 'fastidiousness.'" + +She was struggling, struggling so hard that her hands were clenched, to +do justice to her father. Had she misjudged him? Was his marriage after +all not the horrid thing she had thought it, but an honest effort to +atone to the child he had beggared? Something within her cried "No!" Her +father had sacrificed nothing in the marriage. He had simply yielded, +without a struggle, to the lure of the flesh-pots. Worse than this, the +girl recalled honeymooning incidents that often made her shudder with +mental nausea; certain billing and cooing which she had not always been +able to avoid. It was not only the flesh-pots that had lured him.... + +"Cad!" she cried to herself fiercely. "Cad and liar!" And the terrible +thing was that he did not seem to know he was being a cad and a liar. + +Aloud she said, "And what did Mrs. Calloway get out of the bargain?" + +The Major stared at her, astounded. It was a question so absurd that he +literally could not answer it. Quite unconsciously his eyes strayed +beyond her after a moment to a mirror, as if for reassurance. + +Joan burst out laughing. The laughter was so palpably close to tears +that her father forgave it, and held out his arms to her. "There, there, +my poor child! You're overwrought," he murmured. "Come to Daddy!" + +She had lost all desire to weep on his shoulder now, however, and +Richard Darcy shrank from the look she gave him, as a more innocent man +than he might have shrunk; so level it was, so keen and without mercy. +She saw her father in that moment not only as cad and liar, but as +something very close to a thief. As surely as if she had been told in +words, she knew why her mother, after fighting for years to keep her bit +of property safe for her child, had at the last left it to the +guardianship of her husband. It was to show him she trusted him, to put +him on honor, as it were; to bolster up his waning self-respect by this +final supreme act of faith in him. And he had betrayed her. + +Joan shrugged, and turned to go. Her head hung in shame, and Richard +Darcy knew that the shame was not for herself. What passed through her +brain then was for the moment clear to him, as it is sometimes with +people of one blood. + +"I dare say," he said very low with a sort of dreadful questioning, +"that the law might--might hold me responsible as guardian of your +property, my daughter. If you cared to--if you wished to--make an issue +of it?" + +"What good would that do" she replied brutally. "The money's gone, isn't +it?" + +Then, glancing back, she surprised in his face that look she had almost +forgotten--the frightened, baffled, anxious expression which she +associated with the days when, as Ellen Neal put it, "the Indians were +after him." + +Instantly the reaction came. It was she he feared now, not +"Indians"--she, his own little girl, Joan! + +She ran and put her arms around him tightly, protectingly. "Nonsense!" +she cried, her voice beautiful with the instinct of all the mothers who +had made her. "The law'll never know a thing about it. What has the old +law got to do with you and me? You've done the best you could, Daddy, +I'm sure." + +Richard Darcy answered humbly, like a repentant child, "I have, +daughter, truly I have. I'm sorry...." + +Later, as she walked wearily homeward through streets that no longer +exhilarated her, no bachelor-maid now with a latch-key, nor yet an +independent young traveler in foreign lands, but merely a poor relation +dependent on the bounty of a step-mother, Joan made for herself a new +beatitude: + +"Blessed are the weak," she thought stoically, "for they have got to be +taken care of." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +The two rooms in which Ellen Neal had established herself were on the +second floor of a house that had gone some decades since into a state of +senile decrepitude. But such was the fashion of building in its day that +it showed no particular signs of its approaching end beyond a slight +tilt to leeward and the rather eczematic effect of its stuccoed brick +facade. A high-waisted door surmounted by a fine fan-light and supported +by slender columns which had once been white led into a square panelled +hall from which curved a staircase of exquisite proportions. These +things in a city of larger growth and greater sophistication would have +marked the house as the natural abode of artists and their ilk; but in +Louisville, where art is yet chiefly a thing to be taken in courses by +the elect, it let itself out in rooms for light housekeeping and other +humble purposes. The slender columns were defaced by such signs +as, "Feather Cleaning and Artificial Flowers,"--"Furniture +Upholstered,"--"Plain Dressmaking," etc. + +The neighborhood, except for this one decrepit mansion standing well in +from the sidewalk with an ancient sycamore for company, had long since +forgotten its former claims to fashion; but it was still respectable. +Trust Ellen Neal for that! She had the same flair for respectability as +had the Misses Darcy for gentility. No doubtful character, whether in +house or individual, could fail to yield up its weakness to the +corrosive rectitude of Miss Neal's shrewd eye. + +Joan liked to come to this house, not only because Ellen and the +familiar home furniture were there, but because it carried her romantic +fancy back into the Louisville her father sometimes talked about, the +old South with all its lost glamour of gallantry and derring-do. "_Les +belles dames du temps jadis_" was a phrase that invariably came to her +mind as she entered the graceful, defaced portal. Nearby stood a +street-pump where an actress who was one day to make the charm of +American women world-famous, used to come each morning to draw water, in +her shabby little slippers with a rope of hair over each shoulder--a +lovely young Rebekah at the well. Around the corner stood another old +mansion, now debased to commercial uses, in front of which the +townspeople used to gather daily at a certain hour to watch the languid +progress from door to carriage of a beauty so widely heralded that her +name and her many love-affairs have become history. Here and there in a +neglected fence-corner a ragged rose-bush, or a clump of larkspur +bravely in bloom, spoke to a few observers, such as Joan, of gardens +which had been the lovely setting of lovely ladies long since dead and +dust. + +Twilight was the hour for that neighborhood. Joan liked to fancy Ellen's +house as the darkness fell, with candle-light streaming from the +wide-flung windows, and glimpses within of bells in crinoline and beaux +in tight wrinkled trousers, dancing a quadrille. Among them moved negro +servitors with trays of frosted silver cups, and syllabub (though she +had no slightest notion of what syllabub might be), and black cake, and +small, pricked, beaten biscuit with ham in their insides. And there +would be carriages stopping constantly at the door, to emit more belles +and gallants, girls hoop-skirted and beshawled, who ran lightly up the +curve of the long staircase, with apologies to the couples they +disturbed in passing.... + +Always the house brought such fancies to Joan, and so clearly that she +sometimes wondered whether they were less fancies than race-memories, +souvenirs of Darcys who might have lived and made merry there in the +halcyon days when the old gray river-town was at its zenith; truly, as +it boasted, the Gateway to the South, stopping-place for all travelers +on these floating palaces which no longer ply their leisurely journeys +down the Ohio and the Mississippi to the Gulf. + +Once she had questioned her father about it. "No, that's not one of our +houses, I think," he replied interestedly. "Though it might have been. +Your ancestors were very fond of change, Dollykins--as I am myself. We +seem to have lived in half the houses in Louisville, at one time or +another. But that one has been shabby and tumbledown ever since I can +remember. In my boyhood it was a cheap boarding-house, for actors and +people of that sort, I believe. I knew no one who lived there." + +Joan was disappointed. She would have liked to claim the old mansion as +a relative. + +As she went wearily homeward from her disastrous interview with her +father, Joan suddenly bethought herself of this house, and of Ellen. She +was in no mood just then for the cheerful vulgarities of her +step-mother. On the impulse, she went into the nearest drug-store and +telephoned that she would not be home that night for dinner. + +"Ellen shall cook me some pancakes, and I will help her," she decided, +comforted by the idea. It must be remembered that Joan was only +nineteen. + +Inhabitants in suspenders and dressing-sacks, seeking air on the +doorstep, stared at the girl inquisitively as she entered; but once +within the dimness of the panelled hall she was able to forget these +anachronisms. The quaint elegance of an earlier day was proof against +even Expert Feather-curling, and Upholstery Done Here. + +From above came a sudden tuneless whistling, and then a thump on a door +and a man's voice calling, "Say, Mrs. Neal! Here's a bushel of fine +assorted socks for you, and if you can get enough out of the lot to keep +my feet off the cauld, cauld ground till pay-day, I'll be yours truly." + +She heard Ellen's voice replying in more muffled tones, "All right, sir, +just dump 'em in the door, will you? My hands are in the dough." + +Joan was amused to hear Ellen Neal called "Mrs."--she who was so +unmistakably and truculently a spinster; also she was surprised at the +politeness of her "sir" in response, for Ellen was not given to the +small amenities of social intercourse. The Major himself was rarely +"sir" to Ellen. + +The whistling resumed itself, coming rapidly nearer; and around the +curve of the stairs, which he took two at a time, bounded a young man, +who brought himself and his whistling to a full stop just in time to +avoid carrying Joan with him in his downward course. + +"Whew!--just missed you!" he exclaimed aghast. "You startled me. For a +minute I thought you were a ghost!" + +"Perhaps I am," murmured Joan, and demurely passed on up the stairs. + +He turned and stared after the white ascending figure. She was aware of +his eyes following her. Suddenly he chuckled, "I knew I'd find you +again. And I found the quotation, too! 'Richard the Second,' by William +Shakespeare." + +Joan glanced over her shoulder. "I do not know what you are talking +about," she said frigidly, "and I do not know you from Adam!" She had +brought the impertinence upon herself, but she felt quite able to handle +it--particularly with Ellen Neal just a few steps away. + +Even as she spoke, however, she was aware that she did know this young +man. Something in his voice, in his awkward, deferential manner, brought +back to her memory the too-sympathetic drummer on the train. She lifted +her eyes from his necktie to his face, remembering past regrets. His +ears stuck out. + +"Like the Yellow Kid's!" she thought disgustedly. + +There is nothing in the least romantic about a man whose ears stick out. +He might as well be fat.... + +"'Sad stories of the death of kings,'" he was explaining eagerly. "I +looked it up myself. Sort of sounded like Shakespeare." + +"Oh! I thought it was 'Alice in Wonderland'!" Joan was surprised into +speech. + +"That's a new one on me--'Alice in Wonderland,'"--commented the young +man. "Is it good stuff?" + +"You've never read 'Alice in Wonderland'? What a queer childhood you +must have had!" + +"Didn't have any," he replied, smiling up at her. Then he removed the +smile, made a respectful little bow, and went on out the door. + +Joan found that she was blushing, hotly; and no wonder. She was shocked +by herself. She, one of Sister Mary Agnes's best exemplars of decorum, +had deliberately started and continued a conversation with a strange +young man met by chance on the dark stairway of a house where assuredly +gentlemen did not live. ("Unless very poor gentlemen," she amended; for, +ears or not, he seemed somehow to belong in the category of gentlehood.) +Nor had she even terminated the conversation. It was he who had done +that. He had shown more sense of the fitness of things than had she, +Joan Darcy! + +It was all the effect of the hospitable old hall, Joan decided. The +house, like the roof of a friend, had introduced them. But what was he +doing in such a house? It was not the sort of abode that would appeal, +she fancied, to necktie drummers. + +She opened Ellen's door without knocking. "Hello, there! Who's that I +met on the stairs, and why does he call you 'Mrs.,' you giddy old +fraud?" + +A spoon dropped to the floor with a clatter as Ellen turned, beaming. +"Land sakes! You might as well kill a person as scare her to death," she +complained, far too pleased to admit it. "What you doin' down town this +time o' day, all dressed up like lady-come-to-see? What do you want, +eh?" + +"Pancakes," explained Joan, ripping off her long gloves. "I'm going to +stay to supper, Nellen, so get me an apron and let's begin." + +Ellen's smile widened. "Pancakes! On a hot night like this?" + +Joan nodded. "Um-humm! And lemonade," she said, "and anything else you +can think of that's indigestible. Got any pickles?" + +"What would a lone woman be doin' keepin' house without pickles?" +replied Ellen scornfully, producing them. "And there's a batch of +cinnamon rolls in the oven this minute, just as if I was expectin' you." + +With a sigh of content, the girl reached down a yellow crockery bowl out +of the cupboard--she was on quite intimate terms with Ellen's +cupboard--and tying a gingham apron about her neck, proceeded to stir +batter. It was the same crockery bowl, and perhaps the same gingham +apron, in which she had stirred batter so long ago that she had been +obliged to stand on a footstool in order to reach the kitchen-table. +There was something substantial and fixed and unchangeable about Ellen +Neal and her possessions, something that spelled home, though it was +only home for other people. + +"But you haven't distracted my mind," said Joan judicially, "from the +fact that a young man of your acquaintance calls you 'Mrs.' without +correction. You haven't eloped or anything lately?" + +Ellen Neal bridled. "How you do go on, Joan! It makes it look better for +a lone woman to be livin' by herself if she's called 'Mrs.' Men ain't so +apt to get fresh with her." + +"No?" murmured Joan. She gazed at Ellen's gaunt unloveliness with +twinkling eyes. "Don't tell me men have been getting fresh with you, +Nellen!" + +The other's jaw snapped. "They have not, and they better not try it." + +"Don't you think it's rather a risk darning their socks, then?" murmured +the girl wickedly. "It might give them false ideas." + +"I only do it for one of 'em, and he pays me good. Anything's proper so +long as you get paid for it." + +Joan laughed aloud. "Why, Mrs. Neal, Mrs. Neal, you shock me! What a +perilous idea!" + +"You're awful smart, guyin' me, but I'd be ashamed to think the kind of +thoughts you're thinkin' now," said Ellen Neal, unsmiling. "And you a +spinster yourself! Thoughts are as bad as deeds, any day--worse, 'cause +they come easier. That's one thing I've noticed about you lately, Joan. +You seem to know about things that ain't ladylike, somehow. Something's +happened to you, child. You ain't the nice little girl you used to be." + +"No," admitted Joan, "I'm not. And the world's not the nice little world +it used to be, either." She went over and laid her head on her friend's +bony shoulder. "Don't scold me to-day, dear. You're right, but--Oh, +Nellen, father's lost our money! And there's nothing in the world I can +call my own. Just absolutely nothing!" + +A silence fell. "So," said the old woman. "You've found out, at last, +have you? I've wondered how long it would take. And now what you goin' +to do about it?" she demanded suddenly. "Are you goin' to law?" + +Joan shook her head. "You know what Mother would say to that." + +Ellen sighed. "I suppose she wouldn't hear to it." It was a curious fact +that when these two spoke of Mary Darcy, they always spoke as if she +were still alive, and near them. "Anyway, you can't squeeze blood out of +a turnip--though I must say I'd like to see _somethin'_ squeezed out of +them kind of turnips, if it's only insides!" she added quite +blood-thirstily. "Oh deary me, deary me! How often I've begged your ma +to sneak what there was left out of his reach and put it away where I +keep mine." + +"Where's that, Nellen?" + +"In an old stockin'-fut under my bedtick, where you can bet no man on +earth ever laid eyes on it, or ever will!" + +The smell of scorching bread suddenly filled the room. "Land sakes, my +cinnamon-rolls! And I'd promised that boy to save him some for +breakfast." + +"Breakfast?" exclaimed Joan, glad enough of a diversion from discussing +her undiscussable father. "You mean to tell me you're not only keeping +your young man darned, but breakfasted? Nellen, I'm positively jealous!" + +"You wouldn't be if you could see him eat," said the other seriously. +"Acts like he ain't had enough food to fill him sence he was born. He +was gettin' all his meals out to a restaurant before I come, a place he +calls 'The Sign of the Dirty Spoon.' Jokin', I suppose--he's a great one +for jokes. But he looked so skinny, and was always takin' something for +dyspepsy, so I told him I'd give him a good breakfast anyway, just to +start the day on. Say, Joan, you ought to see him put it away! He says +once, 'I 'spose this is what you call home-cookin', ain't it?' 'Land, +sakes,' says I, 'don't you know home-cookin' when you see it?' 'I ain't +never seen it before!' he says, laughing." + +While she talked Ellen was bustling capably about, laying a cloth, +getting out dishes, dropping Joan's batter into a sizzling saucepan, +from whence arose dense, pleasing vapors. + +"Here, Joan, mix some cinnamon in that sugar, 'less you'd ruther have +molasses on 'em. You ought to see the room he's got. Nothin' but books, +all over the tables, piled up on the floor, even on the window-sills--" + +"Books?" said Joan, pricking up an ear. She had not imagined the +wide-eared young man in his dapper clothes a student. + +"Whatever people want all them books around for I can't see," said +Ellen. "Dust collectors, I call 'em; but he says they're his college +career. Always will have his joke! And the dirt--! He had a colored +woman in to do for him before I come, and guess what she used to do with +her dust?" She paused dramatically, arms akimbo. + +Joan admitted her imagination unequal to the task. + +"Swept it under the bed and left it there! Land!" said Ellen Neal, "how +I do hate a nigger! You can bet I got that place to rights in a jiffy." + +"I can indeed," murmured Joan, "and I can also bet he couldn't find a +thing belonging to him for a week afterwards." + +Ellen grinned. "You've the truth of it. There wasn't a morning for about +a week but what he'd thump on the floor and yell down the chimney, 'Mrs. +Neal, _oh_, Mrs. Neal! For heaven's sake where is my blue necktie?' or, +'In the name of Jehoshaphat, what have you done with my other pair of +pants?' It kind of reminded me of your pa," she said, sighing. "I been +lookin' after him ever sence. There now, ain't you goin' to eat your +pancakes now you've got 'em?" + +Joan drew up her chair to the oil-cloth covered table, and, despite the +heat and her troubles, made such a meal as she had not eaten for weeks +at her step-mother's elaborate board. Ellen sat opposite her, with no +servant-and-mistress nonsense to complicate the pleasure of hospitality. +Sometimes the old woman waited on Joan, and sometimes Joan waited on +Ellen, all in a friendly democracy that would have caused Major Darcy's +hair to rise on end. It had been his conscientious effort for years to +keep Ellen Neal "in her place." The difficulty was in the ups and downs +of the Darcy menage to know just what might be considered Ellen's place. + +Not troubling themselves with any such niceties of status, the two ate +their pancakes and drank their lemonade and otherwise courted +indigestion contentedly, meanwhile chatting about the young man from +upstairs, who for some reason began to appeal to Joan's imagination. His +name, it appeared, was Archibald Blair. + +"Archibald Blair! Nellen, how romantic! Like an English novel. Young +Lord Toodledeboots ruined at Monte Carlo, hiding his poverty and a +broken heart in lodgings. I suppose these might be called lodgings? If +only his ears had been made to fit him!" + +She no longer thought of him as a necktie drummer. The books made a +difference. It seemed unlikely that necktie drummers would be on terms +of first-name intimacy with Shakespeare. Moreover, his awkward yet +somehow easy and unassuming air, like that of a friendly young dog who +takes for granted that the world will be glad to see him, marked him as +one not belonging to what her father called "the canile." No, he was a +student and a gentleman, stranded by some freak of fortune in this +near-slum, a youthful Beloved Vagabond. (It was the year when Locke's +great book cast a glamour over all strange men in shabby clothing.) +Although Archibald Blair was by no means shabby; on the contrary, rather +appallingly dapper. + +"I wonder how he happens to be living in a house like this?" she +ruminated aloud. + +"And why wouldn't he be living here?" demanded Ellen tartly. "It's cheap +and decent, and there's some folks that don't like to go forever hoppin' +from one place to another, like fleas on a dog's back. He's lived in +that same room upstairs ever since he can remember." + +"Oh, has he?" Joan's eye kindled. It occurred to her that the young +man's history might have some connection with the history of the house +itself. "Ellen, I have it! It's the old family mansion, belonged to his +father and grandfather and great-grandfather, and _of course_ he wants +to go on living in it. I would myself!" + +Ellen grinned. "If there's a romantical notion to be found, trust you +for finding it. But if you really want to know, folks do say--" She +hesitated, under the hallucination (which many virtuous women share) +that she disliked to repeat gossip. + +"Yes, yes? Do go on, Nellen!" + +"Well, they do say that if he's got a father at all it's more than he +knows, let alone a grandfather, and great-grandfather. I had it from a +woman downstairs (her that curls feathers, and she got it straight from +somebody who used to live in the neighborhood when this was a actors' +boardin'-house), that he got left here when he was a little boy, by his +mother, in hock for her board-bill. And she never come back for him." + +Joan gave a gasp. "Oh," she cried. "Oh! poor woman!" + +Ellen eyed her curiously. "Poor _woman_? I should think you'd say 'poor +child'!" + +"Poor both of them! But can't you see how much greater the tragedy must +have been for the woman, who knew--who was to blame? Imagine how she +must have dreamed of that pitiful little boy with his nose pressed +against the window-pane watching for her--and she not able to come for +him! Ellen--That's what he's doing here now! Waiting for his mother to +come back!" + +"If he is, I hope it's with a club in his hand," muttered the other +angrily. "Why wasn't she 'able to come,' I'd like to know?" + +"Perhaps she died. Or, she couldn't get enough money, or oh--oh, Ellen, +don't you _see_? She didn't dare to come for him! He was getting too +big, noticing things. For his own sake she had to give him up!" There +were tears in Joan's eyes, ready to spill over. + +Ellen paused and stared at her. "Well!" she said at last. "If I had your +imagination, Joan Darcy, I'd go to a hospital and get it cut out. It +ain't safe! Here you are blubbering over the troubles of a woman who +maybe never lived, and probably was a bad lot if she did--and a'most +making me blubber over her myself!" + +Joan laughed and jumped up. "Here, let me help with the dishes. You wash +and I'll wipe. But what a funny, pitiful little boy he must have been +with those stick-out ears and those big, innocent-looking front teeth of +his! I wonder why it is that big front teeth always do make a person +look so innocent, Ellen?" + +"Seems to me you noticed a lot to have seen Mr. Blair only once." + +Joan did not think it necessary to mention that she had seen him more +than once. + +"I always notice things--I can't help it. Anyway, I'm glad you keep the +poor thing darned and comfy! It's only charity." + +"Charity nothing. He pays me good, and prompter than I ever got paid +before in all _my_ life," disclaimed the other rather tactlessly. + +While she washed and put away her dishes, the girl made a tour of +inspection about the rooms that were so full of associations to her. She +smiled and nodded at the two familiar Landseer dogs on the wall, which +had been a familiar part of every dining-room she remembered. She patted +the worn chairs affectionately, and went in to pay her respects to the +shorn four-post bed, which looked more at ease in its present +surroundings than in others where she had seen it. The panelled walls, +as nearly white as scrubbing could make them, the wide-silled windows +with arched casements, the tall mantel-shelf, the finely molded ceiling +which years of coal soot and cobwebs and general neglect had not +sufficed to rob of dignity, all made a more suitable setting than Ellen +guessed for her mistress's household goods; and to Joan these two +bare and shabby rooms had become a haven of refuge. Tenement though it +was, there was more of genuine beauty in the place where Ellen did plain +dressmaking for very humble customers than in all the elaborate +establishment with which Richard Darcy had managed to provide his +daughter. Joan was very dependent upon beauty. + +Later, Ellen walked out with her through the languorous summer evening +to the house which she never called home. Nothing more had been said +between them of the loss of her independence; but the girl felt soothed +and comforted, strengthened as the heart is always strengthened in the +presence of a deep though inarticulate devotion. She slipped her hand +into the other's thin arm, and so linked they walked along without much +talk between them, listening as they passed to pleasant sounds from many +a shadowed porch and garden, guitar music, singing, the inevitable +hushed murmur of boy and girl voices commingled, which is as natural to +a summer gloaming as the twitter of birds in spring. + +There came again to Joan, for the first time in weeks, something of the +glamour, the sense of promise, which had touched her in the summer past +when she walked at night with her father through the strange city where +he had once been young. It was as if Romance brushed her in passing with +shadowy skirts, and Joan felt that she must catch at them, cling to +them, before it was too late. Youth is so short, so short!... + +Ellen, too, felt the witchery of the soft night; but to the Ellens, +Romance comes only vicariously. + +"Joie," she said after a long silence, "ain't it time you was having +some steady company yourself, child?" + +The girl did not smile at the phrase. It voiced too well her own secret +thoughts. There had been something strangely unreal, unnatural, about +the past weeks. She had brought nothing out of her experience with life +so far, not even a friend--for Stefan Nikolai was merely an inheritance. + +"You're right," she said soberly "I suppose I ought to have a 'steady +company' at least by this time. That ought to be simple +enough!--Marriage is about the only thing left for a girl in my +position, isn't it?" + +"Who's talking about marriage? You don't have to marry every fellow you +walk out with, I should hope," said Ellen surprisingly. "I've walked out +with quite a few myself!... But as to gettin' married, Jo--it's about +the only thing for a girl in any position, I guess, even if she finds +out afterwards that she's picked a lemon. Lemons are better than +nothing." + +"Why, Mrs. Neal!" laughed Joan. "What sentiments from a confirmed +spinster-person!" + +To which Ellen replied quietly, "It's the spinsters who know." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +The discovery of her dependence upon her step-mother marked an end to +one period of Joan's existence: the apathetic period. Heretofore she had +allowed their daily life, their amusements, their acquaintanceships, to +remain in the hands of Effie May. If that lady chose, as she naively put +it, to "break into society," and society was willing, Joan was amenable, +though a little dubious as to society's taste. She was amenable, that +is, so long as she was not called upon too actively to assist in the +process. Pride forbade her making any effort to interest or to be +interested in people who chose to accept the present Mrs. Darcy as one +of themselves. To the Louisville she knew so far, she was merely the +appendage of her parents, a captive chained to the triumphal +chariot-wheel of her step-mother. + +That was all very well so long as she knew that she might snap the chain +at any moment and be free. But a dependence that seemed likely to +continue indefinitely was not to be borne by what the Major would have +called "the proud spirit of a Darcy." Joan, waking in the early dawn, +rose and dressed (not in negligee), demanded breakfast at an hour when +the astonished servants were barely awake themselves, and proceeded to +clear her decks for action.... + +Ellen had sowed a useful suggestion in her brain. There was one freedom +open to all young girls who were not too exacting in their demands: the +freedom of marriage. Joan decided to marry. She also selected the +victim. + +It was the first time she had thought of him for weeks; or of "the +girls," those heart's companions with whom she had shared for two years +her inmost hopes and desires (to say nothing of hats and gloves and +handkerchiefs); with whom at parting she had exchanged vows of lifelong +fealty. Their letters had accumulated unanswered. In the shock and shame +of her father's marriage, she had put away childish things, among them +her schoolmates, who seemed in the retrospect immature and puerile. Even +Eduard of the interesting past had been put away for the moment with +outgrown things, and had remained (fortunately) unthanked for his +parting flowers. As for the love-letter which had accompanied them--Joan +wondered with a start of dismay what had become of it. + +She found it neatly smoothed of its tell-tale wrinkles (the reader will +remember that for a day and a night it had reposed against Joan's +heart), filed among the letters in her desk, where it had been duly +placed after being duly read, doubtless, by one of Mrs. Darcy's +efficient housemaids. + +The girl studied it with a more dispassionate eye than she had brought +to its first perusal: + + My flowers must tell you what I dare not, dearest little girl + of my heart. You will understand why I cannot say good-by. + Truly, "to part is to die a little." Forgive me!--EDUARD. + +Joan decided that this could not, after all, be called a love-letter; or +if so, it was of a noncommittal type distinctly piquing to the vanity. +She had given a good many of her precious holidays to the reforming of +Mr. Desmond. + +"So!" she thought, with a small gleam in her eye. "I was merely a child +that amused him for the moment! He was probably laughing at me.... I +wonder if he would laugh now?" + +She went to her mirror and examined the reflection within impartially. + +Something of what she had always candidly recognized as her plainness +seemed to have disappeared. She was no longer scrawny, for one thing. +Her lazy life of the past weeks, and possibly Effie May's beauty +experts, whose ministrations she accepted so ungratefully, had put a +gracious covering over her young bones, and she discovered with some +excitement the rudiments of a figure. Her straight, burnished hair (she +had so far resisted all temptations to "marcel" it) gave her what she +fancied a rather _distingue_ air, and her skin had that rare, pale +transparency of perfect health which is lovelier even than rosiness. Her +eyes had always given perfect satisfaction. She nodded to them in +affectionate fashion, as to good friends (she had always fancied that +one of them was her brain and the other her soul, and even suspected +which was which--the left wearing rather a twinkle, in comparison with +the right, which had a mild, innocuous expression). Her mouth was too +large. + +"But then," she reflected, "large mouths are very much worn by heroines +nowadays, and mine isn't mushy or loose at the corners, anyway. There's +a draw-string to it." + +Of the nose the less said the better. It was merely a nose. + +On the whole, standing there in her pretty morning dress, with the grace +and freshness of nineteen years about her like an aura, young Joan +decided in all modesty that she was one of the women who have their +moments, and that such moments ought not to be wasted. + +She sat down at once and indited a little note to Eduard Desmond +expressing gratitude for "flowers which had meant so much to her," and +explaining that she had not written before "because it had seemed best +not to"--the inference being that now danger was past, and time had made +it safe for her to think of him. + +"That," mused Joan nibbling her penholder, "ought to make him sit up and +take notice, I should think?" She had been from her cradle something of +a student of her fellow-creatures. + +She wrote to his niece, her friend Betty, as well; a long, confidential +screed, mentioning the fact of her father's marriage without comment and +allowing her friend to read between the lines. Betty had an adored +mother of her own. + +Then Joan rested on her oars and awaited results, which were prompt in +coming. Not for nothing had she been the prize letter-writer of her +school, entrusted by friend and foe alike with the handling of anything +that was most delicate in the way of correspondence. + +A few days later she was able to remark to her family that she had been +invited to visit her schoolmate, Betty Desmond, at the Desmond country +place near Philadelphia. + +"The people you spent the Christmas holidays with in Washington? A fine +old Irish name," commented the Major, who made something of a specialty +of names. "I have not the pleasure of their acquaintance, but I am sure +the good Sisters would not have permitted you to visit them if they had +not been--ah! desirable acquaintances." + +"They are quite rich, if that is what you mean," said his daughter +bluntly. Her manner to her father had latterly undergone a change which +was not altogether nice. + +The Major's eyebrows shot up in pained surprise. "Joan! That is +certainly irrelevant, not to say--" + +"And there's an eligible young man in the family," continued the girl +imperturbably. + +He stared at her, speechless. "My child!" he exclaimed after a moment. +"One would suppose you were actually--" + +"Hunting for a husband? I am," she finished. "What else did you expect +me to do?" + +A burst of laughter from Effie May relieved the situation. "Of course +she's hunting for a husband! All girls are, unless they're lookin' for +trouble. Good for you, dearie! You'll land him, too, I'll bet my hat. +Men? Lord," she cried, "they're as easy as fallin' off a log, once you +get the hang of 'em!" + +But the Major continued to gaze at his daughter incredulously. "To +think," he murmured, "that I should live to hear _my daughter_ speak in +such a manner!" It was evidently not the idea which shocked him, so much +as the indelicate expression of it. + +Joan rose suddenly and left the table. + +Effie May came to her afterwards, intent on comforting. "There, there, +girlie, you mustn't mind what your papa says; he's just a man. Besides, +he's so genteel in his instincts he's hardly human. Your mamma would +have understood, just like I do. _She_ wouldn't of thought you'd said +anything unrefined!" + +"Thank you," muttered Joan bitterly. + +"Why, it's the most natural thing in the world that a girl wants a house +of her own, and a man of her own, and so forth! Only most of 'em ain't +honest enough to come out flat and say so.... I'm for you, dearie. +You're to have the trip, of course, and anything else you want, just let +me know. As if I was really your mother--I mean it!" + +"Thank you," said Joan again. + +It was not the first time she had been disconcerted to find the enemy +fighting her battles. What is to be done with an enemy which will not +keep its proper place? + +Effie May concerned herself in the preparations for departure with a +whole-hearted generosity which occasioned Joan some secret pangs of +remorse. As a step-relative she knew that she herself had left much to +be desired. In vain the girl protested that she had already too many +clothes, too much finery. + +"Nonsense! A girl can't have too much finery," was the rejoinder. "Even +if you don't get to wear all your pretties, it makes you feel sort of +easy, sort of good-as-anybody like, just to know you've got 'em in the +closet." + +With her own hands she ran ribbons and rearranged trimmings and packed, +to the secret jealousy of Ellen, keeping up a constant stream of shrewd +comment and advice, some of which Joan found worth remembering. + +"The trouble with you is, girlie, you think too much," was one of the +pearls that fell from her lips. "Just let go and have a good time, and +don't take yourself so hard. You can feel as different as you like +inside, just so folks don't know it. Folks are sort of leery of what +they aren't used to. See?" + +Joan often wondered in what school of experience her step-mother had +gleaned her curious wisdom. + +Ellen Neal was the only one of the three elders who watched her going +with any uneasiness. + +"Look here, Joan," she said once, abruptly. "When I spoke like I done +about marriage being the best thing for a girl, I meant marriage with +love, child--marriage _with love_. Like your mamma's." + +The simile was unfortunate. The eye that Joan believed to be her brain +twinkled mockingly. "Do you mean to insinuate that marriage and love are +not always synonymous? Why, Mrs. Neal, you put so many strange ideas +into my young head lately! Seriously," she added, seeing that the +other's anxious gravity did not relax, "I don't believe it would be hard +to pump up a little love in return for--lots of it, say, and a place of +your own in the world, and independence." + +"Where there's love there ain't apt to be much independence, I've +noticed," remarked the other. + +"All the more reason to do without love, then!" cried Joan, with +triumphant logic. + +But she hugged Ellen remorsefully, glad that the good woman could only +guess at what was going on at the moment in her nursling's brain. + +Her step-mother's casual advice and her own inner musings had resulted +in one firm determination. If she missed romance, experience, all the +real things of life, it would not be for lack of meeting them halfway. +She would be no longer a passive agent. She would be bold and +reckless--even if necessary a little Fast; though how to go about being +Fast was somewhat of a puzzle to Mary's daughter. + +"If people want to say things, or squeeze my hand, or anything like +that," she told herself rather vaguely, "I must remember not to hold +back and be standoffish.... How do I know what I like unless I try?" + +But while the noun on her tongue was plural and indefinite, the noun on +her mind was single and masculine and very definite indeed. It behooved +Mr. Desmond to look to himself. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Joan, already exhilarated by a foretaste of independence, and enjoying +to the full what Turgenev calls "that carelessness, that deuce-take-it +air which comes out so naturally in foreign travel," changed at Broad +Street for a local train that stops at all the smart little +flower-bedecked stations which make the environs of Philadelphia so +charming to the eye. Neat turnouts were waiting at most of them, +dog-carts with dapper grooms at the horses' heads, big machines driven +by bare-headed young people in sports clothes; here and there a quietly +elegant brougham or limousine with men in livery on the box. + +As her train passed, she caught glimpses of mellow, red-brick houses +that gave the effect of age without decadence; tree-lined avenues, +hot-houses, gardens, velvet lawns. It was country that lacked the broad, +picturesque loveliness of Kentucky landscape, but it had a definite +charm of its own--a well-ordered, leisurely, finished permanence which +reminded one that not only American history but American society had its +stronghold here, changing less than elsewhere in our adolescent land. +There was no suggestion, as in the South, of having seen better days; no +raw, temporary promise of the future as in the Middle West. Joan +remembered having heard that many people who danced in the Philadelphia +Assembly of to-day bore the same names as those who danced in it when +Philadelphia was the country's capital, and Mr. Washington its first +President. She wondered hopefully whether Desmond was one of those +names.... + +People got in and out of the train, carrying golf-bags and +tennis-rackets. Joan smoothed the skirt of the "little model" Effie May +had provided for traveling purposes; a fawncolored crepe with lacy cuffs +and collar, which had at first given her qualms of uneasiness. There was +a long cloth coat to match, and a hat of the costliest simplicity; and +she was not used to traveling dressed as for a party. Now, however, she +was grateful for her step-mother's insistence, with a gratitude which +increased in proportion to the distance between them. + +"Always dress up on a train," was Effie May's sage counsel, "so that +people will notice you're a lady, and treat you according." + +People had undoubtedly noticed, and she had been treated "according"; +and now toward her journey's end it was particularly agreeable to feel +that among these fellow-travelers on pleasure bent she need have no +qualms as to her personal appearance, at least. Underneath she might +know herself to be plain, poor little Joan Darcy, an adventuress in +search of a husband; but on the surface she was as affluent a young lady +as ever rang for the porter to lower a shade that was within two feet of +her hand. + +It may be premature to state that our heroine had already adjusted her +future to her present pleasing environment; but the fact remains that +when the train stopped at the station for which her subconscious mind +had fortunately been listening, Joan was just in the act of moving Ellen +Neal and her mother's furniture into a large Quaker house with a gambrel +roof.... + +Betty was waiting for her in a dog-cart; brown as a berry, with sleeves +rolled up, and a bare, tousled head, quite a different young person +already from the shy little girl who had been her slave at the Convent. + +"Hurry up, old Joie!" she called, wrestling with the cob, who rose on +his hind legs to snort at the snorting engine, while a diminutive groom +tried with frantic leapings to reach his head. "The Rabbit hates to +stand! Run and get Miss Darcy's things, Jenks" (this to the groom) "and +be quick about it, will you? You see," she explained as Joan climbed +perilously aboard and was duly kissed, "when I left, Mother was two up +and four to play, and it's the finals, and she's already got a leg on +the cup. Great, isn't it? We'll have to gallop all the way to get there +before it's over!" + +"What _are_ you talking about?" asked mystified Joan. "A leg on the +cup--!" Hitherto golf had not entered into her vocabulary; though she +had gazed at it from afar, wondering at the strange ways men choose to +waste their golden hours. + +"Why, the tournament, of course! Didn't I write you? We're deep in it. +Where are your clubs, by the way?" She glanced at Joan's bag and +parasol-case. "Oh, dear! Have you left them on the train?" + +"Clubs?--You mean golf-sticks?" asked Joan, with misgivings. "Why, I +haven't any. I don't play golf." + +"_Don't play golf?_" cried Betty in genuine dismay. "What ever will you +do with yourself here? And how on earth do you amuse yourself in +Kentucky? Just ride?" + +"Why, yes," said Joan feebly, "we--we ride." + +Once, indeed, during a period of comparative affluence, the Major had +possessed for a while a horse of the family type; and under his +instruction Joan had occasionally mounted the complaisant beast and +propelled it fearfully about back streets, feeling that something was +due her Kentucky traditions. But suppose she were expected to mount, for +instance, some such fire-eater as the Rabbit! + +"I don't believe I've brought my riding-clothes," she murmured hastily. + +"Goose! Why not? But I dare say Mother can fit you out with trousers," +said Betty, glancing casually at her friend's slim length of limb. +"Mine'd be too short. With trousers and a sweater you'll be all right." + +Joan's eyes opened wide, but her mouth remained closed. After all, she +was out for experience. If it included meeting a violent death while +clad in trousers and a sweater, so be it. + +"Uncle Neddy'll find you a decent horse somewhere," Betty was running +on. "He's awfully keen about your coming, Jo. I'm afraid you're going to +have him on your hands a lot, especially if you don't play golf." + +Joan brightened. "Why? Doesn't he?" + +"Lord, no! Too much of a duffer. Likes to do lazy things, like riding, +and fooling around in a canoe, admiring nature. With widows and such!" +She made a face. + +"Widows?" Joan pricked an ear. + +"Grass or sod. It's all one to our Neddy," murmured his flippant niece. +"Girls are not grown up enough for him, of course--Except you. He always +did take notice when you were around. I remember. But then you were +always more grown up than the rest of us, somehow." She gave her friend +a glance full of the old shy admiration. "Do you know, you've gotten to +be awfully pretty too. Perhaps it's all those grand clothes!" + +"Perhaps it is," smiled Joan, flushing. + +At school she had been the poor girl of her group, the one who had most +often to borrow and least often to lend the simple fineries current +among them for special occasions. Now under her friend's appraising eyes +she was a little uncomfortable, wondering whether the dress she had on +was perhaps a little too "grand" by comparison with Betty's plain linen. +Linens she owned herself, but braided, embroidered, lace-inserted out of +all recognition as such. It was a physical impossibility for Effie May +to select anything plain. Under her manipulation, the merest shirt-waist +became what the salesladies refer to majestically as a "bloose." +Sartorially Joan was entirely in her step-mother's hands. + +"But Southern girls always do dress up a lot, don't they?" said Betty, +innocently continuing her line of thought. "You ought to have seen the +one the Ritters had visiting them last month! All ruffles, and parasols, +and chiffon veils. Couldn't swim or go for a ride or do anything on +account of her complexion. All she did was to dance and sit out in +corners with people. It was disgusting!" + +"And didn't your uncle take notice even of _her_?" murmured Joan. + +"Oh, of course. She was as good as a widow, you see--she'd had so many +affairs. The men simply flocked. Whenever she came on to the +tennis-court she'd break up the game, and we could hardly find enough +men to make up a foursome, they were all so busy hanging around. It was +too queer! I never could see the attraction in rolling your eyes, and +flashing your dimples, and dropping your r's like a colored servant, +could you?--Not," she added hastily, "that _all_ Southern girls are that +sort, Joie dear! You, for instance!" + +"I should hope not," murmured Joan; who had decided on the instant to be +exactly that sort herself, so far as in her lay. It suited the +elaborateness of her wardrobe; it saved her from golf and tennis and +other amusements which bade fair to be terrifying in this sporting +community--particularly the embarrassments of horseback riding. Joan was +too much of an egotist to enter willingly into competitions where she +had no chance to excel. + +No; the languid beauty was her role for the next few weeks; and she +flattered herself that after several months of Louisville she ought to +be able to drop her r's and roll her eyes and flash her dimples with the +best, particularly if the audience were not too experienced in +Southernism. In school theatricals she had always distinguished herself. +Moreover, she had the advantage of a lifelong model to work from; for +Richard Darcy was one of those sons of Dixie whose characteristics +become more markedly Dixotic the farther they travel from base. + +Let the Ritters' guest look to her laurels! + +By way of preparation Joan got out her lip-stick and her powder-puff and +did what she could to improve on nature, Betty watching her the while in +amused respect. + +"I'm glad _I_ don't have to mess my face up with things like that," she +commented frankly. "But I suppose when one goes in for a real complexion +it's got to be taken care of." + +Joan murmured something explanatory about the ravages of a Southern sun; +and so entered upon her brief and eventful career as a Kentucky beauty. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +Joan's respect for the sterner sex, never very exaggerated, was not +increased by the avidity with which they swallowed, one by one, her +inexperienced hook, bait and all. Evidently her fellow-men had very +little use for nice, intelligent, modest young girls in comparison with +the Brazen Hussie.... For Joan had no illusions about herself, either. +She had joined, temporarily it is true, and for what seemed to her +legitimate reasons, the order of the Brazen Hussies. + +She put into practice as many of her step-mother's precepts as she could +recall, and found that they worked astonishingly well. She also +cultivated a beauty-manner, modeling herself on a certain Louisville +belle whose manoeuvers she had observed with interest. She became +helplessly sweet and very, very feminine; and she smiled whenever there +was an excuse for smiling. It was a new smile she had practised before +the mirror; an intimate, confiding, personal affair that crinkled up her +long eyes charmingly, and showed at least two thirds of her good white +teeth. Eduard Desmond occasionally referred to these teeth as "pearls," +though they were hard and sharp and strong as a young squirrel's: Eduard +being the sort of person who takes his similes ready-made out of poetry. + +Surprisingly enough, considering the sporting nature of the community in +which she found herself, Joan heard a good deal of poetry during this +visit. The moon happened to be full, and Longmeadow edged upon a river; +one of those pleasant, cosy little streams that are designed by an +all-wise Providence for canoes to float upon in summer evenings. By day +other girls had their innings on golf-links and tennis-court (though +even by day our heroine was not idle). But at night with the moon she +came into her own. She made her canoe engagements days ahead, not too +frequently with Eduard; and she came to the conclusion that just as +infants at a certain stage must go through the teething period, so +somewhat later they must go with equal painfulness through the poetry +period. It gave her quite a motherly feeling toward her admirers; which +fortunately she was able to dissemble. + +By contrast with the sportsmanlike young women of the community, Joan, +in her frills and wide hats and small, beaded, high-heeled slippers, +seemed to fill a long-felt want. Her role was by no means an +uninteresting one. Occasionally in the course of events she got almost, +if not quite, kissed; and she became expert in deflecting the course of +inconvenient emotion. + +"It's suggestion does it," she wrote to her friend Mr. Nikolai. "Given a +moon, fluffy ruffles, and the Kentucky-belle tradition--and they seem +helpless, poor dears!" + +But perhaps it was not entirely the power of suggestion that made her +success. Joan was enough of an artist to do whatever she did with a +certain finish. + +Her difficulty, however, in the heady game she played, was to +concentrate on the purpose in hand. At the end of two weeks, she began +to fancy a slight diminution of cordiality on the part of both Betty and +her mother, and she realized that her visit was growing longer than +seemed usual. Other guests came and went, remaining only a few days +before going on to the next engagement. Accustomed to the indeterminate +visits of the South, she had not thought to set any definite time for +her departure; but now she felt uncomfortably that the hour had come to +bring things to a climax. She gave herself one more week at Longmeadow. +Surely three weeks is a short enough time in which to provide oneself +with a future and a husband! + +She was by no means counting without her host. From the day of her +arrival Eduard had taken no pains to hide the fact that he considered +her his especial property. While his manner was still that of one who +would not willingly brush the bloom from off the peach, there had always +been in it a disturbing hint, a slight flattering suggestion, that +peaches are tempting even to the jaded appetite. Lately his air of +possession had become, to Joan's amusement, decidedly tinged with +jealousy. He viewed his more youthful rivals with no attempt at +equanimity. + +Joan was aware that people were beginning to discuss the affair, and to +watch her curiously. It put her on her mettle. She intended to satisfy +their curiosity very shortly; but--she wished the thing might be managed +without the necessity for so many tete-a-tetes. + +It was not that she did not like her future husband. On the contrary she +liked him so well as to find herself a little shy with him. She +preferred his attentions to take place against a background of society; +as for instance, at a dance, when his eye could be as significant as it +chose without alarming her; or at table, where under cover of the +general conversation, they managed some moments of real intimacy. + +There was much to be said, thought Joan, for the French method of +vigorously chaperoning young love up to the very threshold of matrimony. + +As it was, his foot seemed uncomfortably prone to rest on hers beneath +the table; and once when he stooped to recover a dropped fan, his lips +had brushed like a touch of delicate flame along the bare length of her +forearm--But these indications of what was to come the startled girl was +able to ignore as accidental. (She had decided, it will be recalled, to +be if necessary a trifle Fast.) + +At last she steeled herself firmly to the necessity for tete-a-tetes, +realizing that even so finished a performer as Mr. Desmond could not +well manage a genuine proposal during the intricacies of the tango, or +at dinner between the soup and the entree. There were certain +accompaniments, she fancied, that made the idea of a proposal in public +impracticable--Joan's imagination was frequently as useful to her as +experience. + +She had managed to escape the perils of horseback riding by an inspired +expedient. Duplicity, she found, came easily with practice. + +"Straddle a horse? Oh, honey, I couldn't!" she had murmured at her most +Southern, when informed that there were no side-saddles in the +Longmeadow stables. + +"Why," protested Betty, "there's not a side-saddle to be had this side +of Kentucky, Jo--they're as extinct as the Dodo! And even if there were, +papa would never allow one on any of our horses. You haven't your habit +here, anyway. Do be sensible, dear. I'll let you ride the Rabbit!" + +Joan shook her head, regretfully but firmly. "If my father were to see a +lady of his family straddling a horse, in trousers," she said, "I think +he'd have a stroke!"--which was doubtless true. + +It was necessary, therefore, for Eduard's increasing desire for solitude +to take the form of canoeing, or driving in the dog-cart without a +groom; or preferably, strolling through a certain bit of near-by +woodland. + +Here he liked to fling himself at his handsome length on the moss at +Joan's feet, and read to her chosen bits out of the "Rubaiyat": a work +much in favor at the moment, which would appear to have been translated +by Mr. Fitzgerald for the express purpose of uttering Mr. Desmond's +sentiments. + +Joan murmured "Um-m-m!" and "How true!" and "Exquisite!" in the right +places; but she was not often listening to him. She was watching the +play of light and shade on his fine, waving hair; she was studying more +keenly than she knew the chiseled features, bearing those slight marks +of manly dissipation which are for some reason never wholly displeasing +to the young feminine eye; she was noticing the smallness of his hands, +the really beautiful cut and quality of his clothes. + +What sort of person was he under the agreeable surface, this chosen +husband of hers? + +An artist, people had called him: but Art in his case seemed not the +exacting mistress she had fancied it. Or perhaps the artistic +temperament required long periods of recuperative leisure.... She had +decided that it was wiser not to fall in love, at least till after +marriage: but she did choose that her husband should be the sort of +person it was possible to fall in love with; well-bred, fastidious, +cultivated, thoroughly a man of the world. All these Eduard Desmond was, +and more. He had a real and unaffected taste for music, books, +nature--for what Joan called to herself "the real things." It argued +well for future companionship. + +There was, to be sure, the disability of what she thought of vaguely as +his "habits." But there had been no sign of them in the two weeks she +had lived in the same house with him; and even if he had not as yet +completely overcome them, there was no reason why he should not do so +later, with a watchful wife to help him. On the whole their chances for +happiness together seemed quite as good as those of most people she +knew, thought Joan, with unconscious cynicism. + +The material side of the arrangement did not occur to her. For all her +calm calculations, Joan was not mercenary. All she asked was a place of +her own in the world, a sense of permanence; she longed quite wistfully +for a background that "stayed put." Romance was a thing she felt she +could do without forever, in return for independence from her +step-mother, and perhaps a little home of her own with a garden to it. +She believed that to any man who would provide these few essentials she +could be a faithful and a loyal wife. + +What would he expect of her in return? Would she have to go on all her +life being Southern and winsome and alluring? Would he prefer her, after +the honeymoon, say, to go in heavily for sports, like the women of his +set? Or might she presently venture to be just herself again--just Joan, +whatever that might be! The gayest of roles becomes a trifle wearing for +everyday use. + +She sighed; and looking up from the Rubaiyat, he caught her eyes fixed +upon him, wide and speculative. + +"What is the little girl thinking of?" he asked tenderly. + +She answered at once, with a return of her gay daring, "You--of course!" + +But under his intensifying gaze her own dropped, and he went on reading; +in a voice that shook, however. + +"Now for it!" said Joan suddenly to herself. She dropped her hand +negligently on the leaves, close to his. + +She resisted the temptation to jerk it back as soon as she was aware of +its contact with another. Very slight the contact was, no more than the +touch of a leaf. She pretended not to notice it; but the blood sang in +her ears, her cheeks burned--she wished suddenly that he would take her +hand, if he was going to; hold it tight.... + +Heavens! What was happening to her? She _wanted_ the touch of his hand; +she liked it! Did she care for him, then? Was this being in +love--already? + +"Joan," he whispered. "Look at me!" + +The spell was broken. She jumped to her feet. "Come, we must be getting +back," she said hurriedly. "It is late." + +"Ah, but how cold you are!" + +"Yes, I am, a little," she said innocently. "These woods are damp." + +But all the way home, beneath her relief, lingered a sense of annoyance, +of disappointment. + +"What a prig I am," she thought disgustedly. "It would be all over now +if I'd only--let him!" + +That night she wrote at unusual length to Mr. Nikolai. It was almost +like writing to herself; and Joan frequently felt the need of seeing +what she was about set down in black and white, for greater clarity. + +She had not meant to tell Mr. Nikolai of her imminent engagement till +the thing was _fait accompli_; but she knew that everything would be +settled by the time her letter reached him. She wanted to be reassured +about her odd and unexpected emotion during the contact of her hand with +Eduard Desmond's. Was it so, then, that people fell in love, just +suddenly without any warning? And had the mind nothing to do with it +whatever? + +For mentally she was not altogether pleased with herself. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +The idea that Betty and her mother were eyeing her somewhat askance +troubled Joan not a little. In her heart of hearts she preferred women +to men, and believed their friendship more of a compliment. She would +have liked to make a friend of Mrs. Desmond, had there been time, +envying Betty's camaraderie with her mother; although Mrs. Desmond +presented a golfing, bridge-playing, sporting type of motherhood quite +new to her experience. + +There was a peculiar intimacy and freedom among all this group of +people, who seemed to spend most of the year together either in +Philadelphia or Aiken or Ormond or these long-established country-places +surrounding the Longmeadow Hunt Club. It was like a curiously ramified +family, in which husbands and wives seemed to have changed partners +rather frequently, and were still in process of changing. It was Joan's +first glimpse of a society in which married women hold the center of the +stage rather than young girls, and she was just a little shocked by it. + +There appeared to be no age limit here. It was not so much that these +women concealed their age, after the rather obvious fashion of Effie +May, as that they simply ignored it. Even Mrs. Desmond, dignified and +well-bred though she was, had a devoted attendant or two, spoken of +casually by Betty as "mamma's flames," and during Joan's visit at least +Mr. Desmond remained merely an abstraction. Conjugal affection was +distinctly not the fashion in the Desmond circle. + +But this casualness of relations did not extend to the young girls. They +had no such freedom as Joan was accustomed to in the South. Betty, at +eighteen, was as carefully guarded as if she were still a child. She was +not permitted to go into the city without a maid or an older woman; she +neither drove or canoed alone with men, nor "sat out" with them at +dances. And it did not occur to her to protest. + +"That sort of thing isn't good form," she explained once to Joan. "For +us, at least--Of course with Southern girls it's different." + +But Joan began to suspect that even Southern girls were expected to hold +in regard this one fetish they had elected to worship, Good Form; and +that according to this standard she had already been condemned. + +At first the younger women had made some effort to include her in their +various activities, golf, bridge, tennis. But latterly they had left her +alone, not severely but tolerantly, as one dedicated to other pursuits. + +"Miss Darcy? Oh, she's from the South, you know--awfully busy with the +men," she overheard one of them explain to a newcomer; and she had +resented the remark keenly, not only for herself, but for the women of +her adopted home, who at least are rarely "busy with the men" after +marriage. + +The person who made this remark was a Mrs. Rossiter, a pretty, boyish +creature, already divorced and remarried at thirty, and bearing her +present conjugality rather lightly. She was on terms of great intimacy +with the Desmond family, Eduard included; and Joan fancied that she +might have been one of the "widows" mentioned by Betty as her uncle's +chosen companions. + +But if it had been so, her day was done. Eduard had palpably no eyes for +her now, and Joan could afford the generosity of admiring Mrs. Rossiter. +She was so natural and frank, and so royally indifferent to others' +opinion. Joan, who had a fatal propensity for acting as the people about +her expected her to act, envied her this assurance, and wished that she +could make friends with her. + +The truth was that the girl, despite her success, felt utterly lonely. +She saw very little of Betty. Mrs. Desmond was an experienced hostess +who made no attempt to regulate the comings and goings of her guests, +and the girls made separate engagements. Even bedtime confidences had +ceased, owing to the fact that when Joan came up to her room, Betty was +usually asleep. + +But on the night of her illuminating afternoon in the woods with Eduard, +Betty appeared to be waiting up for her. She came yawning into Joan's +room to watch her friend undress, and established herself sleepily on +the foot of the bed. + +"What a pity you can't wear your hair down all the time, Jo! Men adore +hair, don't they? And yours has a regular patina on it, like old +bronze." + +"Not greenish, I hope," laughed Joan. + +"No--sort of orangish. Dark, with an orange lining." + +"Betty! It sounds horrible!" + +"Well, you know very well it isn't.--May Rossiter thinks you are awfully +clever to wear it that simple way, too, so straight and plain, when the +rest of us stick out like mops. She says you're awfully clever about +lots of things--too smart for the likes of us." + +"Does she?" Joan was a little startled and not quite pleased. She had +not intended to give the impression of cleverness. It was out of her +present role entirely. "I wonder what Mrs. Rossiter meant by that?" + +"Oh, men, of course," yawned Betty. "You see you've annexed a few of +hers, which naturally makes her peevish." + +"Have I?" murmured Joan. "Who, for instance?" + +"Well, Uncle Neddy, for one." + +"Oh! So she _was_ one of his flames, then?" + +Betty sat up. "You mean to say you didn't know it? One of them! _The_ +one, my child! Surely you remember about his broken heart?--the married +lady he was recovering from in Washington last year? Well, May's it. Of +course I'm not supposed to know, being an _ingenue_--but our Neddy was +frightfully gone on her, and she returned it, and the husband she had +then got jealous (rather a bounder he was, not one of us, you know), and +there was some sort of excitement, and she divorced him. Every one +thought to marry Uncle Ned, of course. But instead she upped and married +Mr. Rossiter! Joke on Neddy, wasn't it?" + +Joan's lip curled. "What a romantic love story! Why do you suppose she +married that old Mr. Rossiter?" + +Betty shrugged in a worldly-wise manner. "Awfully rich, my dear. And +Neddy isn't." + +"But they seem friendly enough still, she and Mr. Desmond?" + +"Oh, of course. Why not? It would be frightfully uncomfortable for the +rest of us if they glowered and didn't speak and all that, like +quarreling servants. And Uncle Neddy seems to be consoling himself!" She +twinkled at Joan. "That evens things up, you see. But,"--she suddenly +grew grave--"what do _you_ get out of all this, Joan? You couldn't +possibly _like_ seeing so much of Uncle Neddy! He's such a--softy. And +such a bore, too, with his art and poetry and stuff." + +"You mean," smiled Joan, "he's too mature for you, dear." + +"Too mature for you then, too! You're only a few months older." + +The other gave an unconscious sigh. "Oh, me--I'm different." + +Betty rounded upon her, "You certainly are! I've never seen such a +change in any one as a few months have made in you! Sometimes I hardly +recognize you for the Jo I used to know at school--so funny and larky, +and yet paying no more attention to the boys we used to make eyes at +over at the College than if they didn't exist." + +"College boys _don't_ exist," said Joan gravely. "They're like tadpoles, +just a transition state. And rather disgusting." + +"Not half as disgusting as the Uncle Neds! Look here, Joan," Betty +blurted out, "you're not--wanting to get married, are you?" + +Joan went as pale as the other was flushed. "No," she said in a low +voice, "I'm not!" + +Betty heaved a sigh of relief. "There! That's what I told 'em." (She did +not mention whom.) "The Ritters' guest was different. She _had_ to get +married, because she'd been visiting 'round for years, and people were +getting tired of it, and she couldn't pay for her clothes. But you, at +your age, with all the beaux you must have! Why, you wouldn't touch +Uncle Neddy with a ten-foot pole." + +Joan bit her lip. "Why not, Betty?" she asked, quietly. "What's wrong +with your uncle? You mean--because he drinks?" + +Betty looked uncomfortable. She was more of an _ingenue_ than she +thought, and found herself getting into deep water. + +"I don't know exactly," she confessed, "but there's _something_ wrong +with him. I don't think he drinks; not more than everybody does, anyway. +He's too fastidious--and I'd have noticed if he did. But there are other +ways of being dissipated--aren't there?" + +"I see!" said Joan, wisely; though she saw with some vagueness. Chorus +girls, she fancied, models, the artistic temperament, and all that.... +On the whole, she felt rather relieved. + +"That sort of thing ought to be easier to cure than drinking," she mused +aloud, "if a man were happily married." + +"_If!_" repeated Betty. "The question is, could it be done? Well, thank +Heaven, _we_ don't have to do it, anyway. I'd hate the job of keeper to +Uncle Ned's roving eye!... Ugh, let's not talk about it! Years before +you and I have to think of horrid things like marriage--Good night, you +bad old flirt," she murmured, kissing her friend. + +Joan was left with the subtle impression of having been warned. + +The impression was repeated the next morning when Mrs. Desmond, meeting +her on the stairs, remarked with a friendly pat of the arm in passing, +"I do wish you'd teach Betty something of the fine art of keeping them +guessing, Joan, It's quite wonderful the way you play them all off +against each other, and so good for them--particularly Ned! He's rather +spoiled, I'm afraid--used to monopolizing his favorites...." + +Evidently the Desmonds did not intend to take her affair with Eduard +seriously. For the first time it occurred to her that this might be +because they did not wish to. She was certainly not, to use Betty's +significant phrase, "one of them." + +The girl's head lifted haughtily. She was a Darcy of Kentucky. Surely +that was sufficient? + +Once in her childhood she had heard her father remark in a moment of +especial grandiloquence that Darcys were entitled to the society of +kings and queens; and Joan had never doubted the truth of the statement. +Something within assured her that she would feel perfectly at ease with +any kings or queens who chanced to cross her path. In fact the only +people with whom so far she had not felt at ease were snobs and +parvenues, under neither of which categories the Desmonds could be +placed. + +Now she wondered suddenly to what she and her father owed this +comfortable sense of lofty destiny. True, theirs was "an old Southern +family"; but living in a part of the world that seems entirely populated +by such families, this was no distinction. Darcys, she knew, had fought +and died for their country whenever occasion offered, but so had quite +simple people named Smith or Jones. She racked her brain to think of +anything else they might have done for their country, or even for +themselves. Genius had never made its appearance among them, nor wealth, +nor even beauty, to any noticeable extent. They were rich in one thing +only: self-esteem. + +Fortunately, however, Joan had her share of that; and upon further +reflection she decided that "Darcy" was at least as distinguished a name +as "Desmond." Doubtless their ancestors had been kings in Ireland +together. + +The question of her poverty occurred to her for a moment, only to be +dismissed as negligible. The Desmonds were too well-bred to be +mercenary. Eduard was not rich himself; and if, as Betty intimated, his +reputation was a trifle tarnished, he could not be too exacting in his +demands. He could not expect youth, and charm, and wit, and a dowry as +well! thought Joan complacently. No: Eduard would be getting quite as +much as he gave.... + +It was in rather a defiant mood that she appeared at dinner that night +in a blue chiffon frock which the observant Eduard had pronounced his +favorite; and though some people were expected afterwards for dancing, +she deliberately accepted his murmured suggestion that they row up the +river to see the last of the harvest moon. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +There had naturally been some discussion at the Convent as to the most +desirable setting for proposals, the consensus of opinion being in favor +of Miss Alcott's little water-scene between Amy and the faithless +Laurie. Laurie, the reader will remember, is rowing Amy about in the +romantic region of Chillon (still with regretful memories of Jo hovering +in the background, however), when she catches him eyeing her with an +expression which + + "makes her say hastily, merely for the sake of saying + something: + + "'You must be tired; rest a little and let me row,' etc. + + "'I'm not tired, but you may take an oar if you like,' etc. + + "Feeling that she had not mended matters much, Amy took the + offered third of a seat, shook her hair over her face" (Joan + personally suspected that Amy belonged also to the order of the + Brazen Hussies) "and accepted an oar. + + "'How well we pull together, don't we?' said Amy, who objected + to silence just then. + + "'So well that I wish we might always pull together in the same + boat. Will you, Amy?' very tenderly. + + "'Yes, Laurie,' very low. + + "Then they both stopped rowing, and unconsciously added a + pretty little tableau of human love and happiness to the + dissolving views reflected in the lake." + +This classic scene was not absent from Joan's mind as she seated herself +and her blue chiffon recklessly in the prow of Eduard's canoe; though +the details of stage-management troubled her somewhat. Suppose the +proposer chose to kneel at the feet of the proposee--since there was no +seat to share with her? And suppose the proposer lost his head (as might +properly be expected of him) and embraced the proposee madly--what was +to prevent so precarious a thing as a canoe from tipping over! It seemed +to call for great presence of mind on the part of the proposee. Joan +felt rather nervous. + +Mr. Desmond, however, let the opportunity pass. Perhaps he had not read +"Little Women." + +Amid talk so casual that it might as well have been silence, they +slipped along between the wide gray of earth and sky, afloat on a stream +of silver. They came presently to an overhanging willow, where he tied +the boat, and helped Joan ashore. He led her, with an air of one +performing a ceremony, up a slight rise of land topped by a great +beech-tree, whose widespread roots made a sort of armchair, after the +hospitable fashion of beech-trees. + +"Queen Joan on her throne, viewing her domain," he murmured. + +He had not brought her to this place before, and she realized that he +had been saving it for a special occasion. There was a view before her +of shadowy, dreaming country, with a hint of stars to come, and +sheep-bells tinkling in a distant field, and lights gleaming here and +there from half-hidden houses. + +Eduard began to murmur softly: + + "When the quiet-colored end of evening smiles, + Miles on miles + O'er our many-tinkling meadows where the sheep + Half asleep, + Wander homeward through the twilight, browse and crop + As they stop--" + +A sudden impatience seized Joan. How like him to arrange this setting, +to bring things carefully to a climax, and then--to spout Browning at +her! + +But she said, as he paused, "Beautiful! 'Love among the Ruins,' isn't +it?" + +"Yes--And I," he sighed, tapping himself on the chest, "I am the Ruins!" + +Despite the bombast of his tone, there was something in his sigh that +struck her as genuine. + +She said consolingly, "At least you're a well-preserved ruin, very +popular with tourists.... I wonder what makes you feel so particularly +ruinous to-night?" + +"The fact that you're so damnably young," he muttered. + +She made a little face at him. "I'm not, really. I'm one of those +persons who are born grown-up, you know. Besides, it's a fault that will +disappear in time." + +"Exactly! And before you know it, my dear. + + "'The nightingale that in the branches sang--ah, whence and + whither flown again, who knows!' + +"You oughtn't to be here with me," he said abruptly. "You ought to be +back there, playing with the little boys and girls." + +"But if the boys and girls bore me--?" + +"Do they?" he demanded. "Those chaps you dance and flirt with--?" + +Joan made him the present of a very special smile. "Perhaps that was to +make other people--jealous." + +"You darling!" he said under his breath; but still he did not touch her. + +"'Love among the Ruins' really isn't very beautiful," he said after a +moment, "or very natural, either--as my sister-in-law was very good to +point out to me only this morning!" + +Joan flushed. So Mrs. Desmond was taking not only a passive but an +active interest in her affairs! + +"Your sister-in-law is needlessly solicitous. I'm not a child like +Betty. I know exactly what I am doing." + +He leaned toward her. "Do you? Do you, I wonder? Joan! Look at me! _Do_ +you know what you are doing--to me?" + +The darkness left only the white outline of their faces visible to each +other. He struck a match, in order to see her better. + +For a moment she tried to meet his eyes. They frightened her even while +they drew her. The blood began to sing in her ears, as it had when he +touched her hand. She wanted him to take her in his arms, to hold +her--and at the same time she wanted to run away and hide. Their long +gaze seemed to let down some barrier within her, to loosen curious +impulses.... Why did he not take her, and have done with it? + +"No," he muttered, as if she had spoken, "Come!" + +Her body made a helpless movement toward him.... + +Then the match burnt his fingers and he dropped it. + +"I--I thought you said you had a present for me," she quavered, with a +little breathless laugh. She suspected what the present was, and she +wanted to get this queerly painful scene over. + +But the velvet case he drew out of his pocket was too large for a ring. +It contained a flexible chain of platinum for her wrist, set with jewels +which glittered in the dusk. + +"Oh!--oh, how lovely!" she exclaimed. Even Stefan Nikolai had never +given her anything as splendid as this. + +"May I put it on?" asked Desmond quietly. + +She held out her hand in delight; and suddenly he had seized it and +pushing her sleeve out of the way, was pressing his lips to her inner +arm above the elbow, kissing it hungrily, fiercely, as if he could never +have done. + +She gasped and shrank a little. Getting engaged was not at all as she +had pictured it. + +"Wh--what a funny place to kiss me," she heard herself quavering, "when +I've got a perfectly good mouth!" + +After that she ceased for once to analyze her sensations.... + +A gibbous harvest-moon was gazing down at them with its wry face when +the two awoke to the fact that the hour was late and cold, particularly +for a girl dressed airily in chiffon. Joan gazed ruefully at the wreck +of her prettiest gown, limp with dew and crushed beyond recognition. She +felt rather limp and crushed herself, though withal triumphant. One does +not get engaged every night, and it was fitting that certain sacrifices +honor the event. + +The lovers had little to say to each other, as the canoe slipped back +down the whispering river under that gibbous moon. For once Eduard found +no poetry to suit the occasion. Joan, busy with her tumbled hair, hoped +and even prayed that she might be able to slip into her room unobserved. +She hurried nervously out of the dark boathouse, despite entreaties to +wait, and was half way to the house before he caught up with her. + +"Oh, hurry!" she whispered. "They've all gone--every light in the house +is out! It must be after midnight. Ned, what if they've locked the +door?" + +"They haven't. My sister knows we're still out--trust her for that!" + +"But suppose she's waiting up for us?--Oh, Ned, whatever shall I say?" + +"You might tell her, Beautiful," he teased, "that I've had you up under +the beech-tree, kissing roses into your cheeks and stars into your +eyes!--though I think any one who saw you just now might suspect that +without being told." + +She turned suddenly and clung to him. Something of Joan's independence +had already slipped away from her, now that she had some one to cling +to. "Ned, she doesn't like me! How am I ever going to win her over?" + +"Kiss her," he suggested promptly. "Kiss her as you've been kissing me. +It couldn't fail!" + +"Don't tease!" She lifted serious, wide eyes to his, and he saw that +they were wet. "Don't you know that I shall never, never in all my life, +kiss anybody else as I have kissed you?" + +Touched, he drew her closer. She looked just then singularly childish +and confiding. "Dear little girl, that thought herself so grown-up!" he +whispered, his cheek on her tumbled hair. + +When she stirred in his arms he still held her. "What's the use of +hurrying now, Beautiful? The fat's in the fire--and who knows when we +shall have another night like this, all to ourselves?" + +But she would not stay. She felt, obscurely, that they had been engaged +enough for one evening. + +She found herself at last safe in her room--'safe' was the word in her +mind--sitting on the edge of her bed, staring down at her ruined finery +with eyes which did not see it. Her knees felt queerly weak under her, +her lips were bruised, her cheeks and throat and arms burned still with +remembered kisses--She said to herself, like the old woman with a shorn +petticoat, "Can this be I?" + +What had become of her powers of observation, her cool intelligence, her +impersonal decision that it was wiser not to love the man you marry lest +he be given power to hurt you? There was nothing impersonal left in her +feeling for Eduard Desmond! The change had come as suddenly as a summer +thunderstorm. At one moment she was waiting, nervous, a little afraid, +for the event that she had brought to pass. The next, he and she seemed +to have been thrown into a sort of vortex, where they clung to each +other madly, desperately, as if to escape destruction. And she had been +quite as frantic about it as the man.... + +She thought, dazedly, that there was a good deal she would be able to +tell the girls at the Convent now on the subject of proposals--yes, and +Miss Louisa M. Alcott, too! Except that school-girls and literary old +maids were not exactly the people with whom one would discuss such +phenomena-- + +They had fancied, she and Betty and the rest, that some sort of formula +was necessary to the occasion, a definite question asked and answered, a +more or less formal, "Will you, Amy?" and "Yes, Laurie." Foolish +innocents! She and Ned had not exchanged a sensible word from the moment +they found themselves in each other's arms. Yet the understanding +between them was unmistakable. They were completely engaged--almost, +Joan thought with a shiver, as good as married! + +This, then, was love. A very different thing from what she had expected! +A beautiful, rather terrible thing.... The touch of Puritan in the girl +made her wonder whether anything so beautiful and terrible could be +quite nice. + +She slipped to her knees; not to pray, but simply to remember her +mother. The vision of her mother always came better when she was on her +knees--perhaps because of the old-time association of prayers with +bedtime--and Joan felt a desperate need of her just then. She wanted to +be assured that her mother understood, and had been through it all +herself, and had come out of it--just her mother. She held out her +jeweled bracelet childishly in the dark, as if for somebody to see. She +knelt there tense, every nerve and fibre straining, whispering under her +breath, "Mamma, are you here? Do you know?" + +But the vision failed her. She had instead the warmth of a man's breath +on her closed eyes, the roughness of his cheek on her throat.... + +She dropped her head in her arms and began to sob. She was very happy. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +It was well into the middle of a fine blue and gold morning when Joan +awoke, to find her coffee cold on the tray beside her bed. She had slept +through even the entrance of the maid who called her; she who had +expected not to sleep at all! An engaged girl, with her lover +waiting--in the garden, perhaps, or down beside the river--their river! + +The happiness of the night before came to her with a rush, and with it +an enormous sense of relief. The thing was done, accomplished! + +She ran to the window and peeped out eagerly, hoping he might be +watching her window. But only the old gardener was in sight, pottering +about among the roses. She blew a kiss from her finger-tips--whether to +the gardener, the roses, or the sparkling water beyond she did not +know--and began hurriedly to dress. + +Singing under her breath, she tripped down the stairs. The big, sunny +house was very still. Joan, going from room to room, gazed about her +appreciatively. Hitherto the house, the garden, the wide, pleasant +countryside had all served merely as a background, of which she was +vaguely aware as actors are of a suitable setting for the play they +produce. Now she felt that she really had leisure to enjoy her +surroundings, which were usually very important to Joan. + +She paused to examine a hunting-print, lingered over a fine etching, +patted affectionately the soft, gay chintzes of the morning-room. What a +relief after such an artificial house as her step-mother's! Nothing here +in the least pretentious, no striving after periods, or artistry, or +even originality, but everything good, well-chosen, used: luxury in +abeyance to comfort; everywhere evidence of travel and culture, and the +long habit of these things. + +Joan drew a breath of satisfaction. Just such a home she hoped to make +for Eduard, though on a smaller scale, perhaps, and with the addition of +a little beauty; since it takes more than wealth to provide that. + +She thought to find him in the billiard-room, or perhaps in a certain +little vine-hung balcony where they sometimes met. But both were empty. + +"Where's everybody this fine morning, Molly!" she asked a housemaid she +met in the hall. + +"Gone over to play golf, like as usual, Miss--'cep'n Mr. Eduard," added +Molly, (the pantry having eyes of its own). "He took the first train to +town--no'm, I guess it was the second train. Anyway it was real early +for Mr. Eduard to be up." + +"Oh," said Joan, blankly. + +Then it occurred to her why he might have felt the sudden need of +running into town. Bracelets are all very well in their way, but they +are, after all, noncommittal. She glanced down at her ringless hands, +and laughed. + +The maid smiled, too, as if in sympathy. "That's an awful pretty +bracelet you got on, miss," she was emboldened to say. + +"I like it myself, Molly," she confessed, holding it off at arm's length +the better to admire it. + +She wondered how long it took to get into Philadelphia and back, if one +were in a hurry.... + +Presently some of the golfers came in, ravenous for luncheon. In a +sudden accession of shyness, Joan hid her bracelet in her pocket. She +surprised them by offering to go back with them later to the golf-links. + +"Perhaps I'll catch a golf-germ," she explained. + +"What, no engagement for this afternoon? Where's our Eduard?" murmured +Mrs. Rossiter, who was one of the party. + +But Joan had learned long since to meet impertinence with a noncommittal +smile. + +After an hour or so of polite attention to the game, however, her +interest flagged. She knew that when Eduard got home he would come to +look for her, and she had a sudden dread of their first meeting before +others, under the observant eyes of May Rossiter in particular. She made +an excuse of letters to write, and walked back through their favorite +woodland, on the chance of his meeting her there. Eduard had rather an +instinct for that sort of thing. + +But when she reached Longmeadow, there was no sign of him. Nor did he +appear that night at dinner. No comment whatever was made upon his +absence. + +Joan became uneasy. Surely it was very strange that he should leave her +for so long a time just now, without explanation! + +An explanation offered itself that drove the blood out of her +cheeks--His habits! What did Betty know about them? Men who drink do not +always choose the bosom of the family in which to indulge their +weakness. In the reaction of emotion upon an artistic temperament, +anything might be happening! + +The thought roused in Joan one of her finest traits: an immediate +response to any call upon her protection. That he had so soon failed her +was no reason for her to fail him. She must try to understand, and +wait.... + +People dropped in after dinner, among them as usual Mrs. Rossiter; and +Joan, chatting rather abstractedly with one of her admirers in a corner +of the porch, caught fragments of conversation from the room within, +between Mrs. Rossiter and her hostess. + +"So Ned's torn himself away at last?" + +"Yes, thank Heaven! The Arnolds have postponed their cruise three times, +waiting for him. Why people put up with his shilly-shallying, I'm sure I +don't know!" + +"Oh, Ned has his uses. They say Fanny Arnold.... But what do you suppose +the Darcy girl...." + +Their voices dropped lower, and Joan heard no more.... + +She felt for the moment absolutely numb. She was like a person who has +been shot, without having time to ascertain where. All the pride in her +gathered to meet this blow without flinching. People must not +suspect--they must not suspect. + +She went on chatting, laughing, jesting.... He had gone away for good! +Without a word to her, he had gone away. He had known last night that he +was going, and that he would not come back. She, Joan Darcy, had been +jilted. She, too proud to live on a stranger's bounty, had offered +herself, unasked, to a man who did not want her!... + +Somebody begged her to sing, and brought a guitar. Hers was a slight +voice, uncultivated, but with something about it, as about Joan, that +attracted attention. People listened to her. She had that curious +_elan_, that sense of being borne on some outside power, that comes to +certain natures from the response of an audience. + +Joan touched heights that evening. To some brains, suffering is an +incomparable stimulant. Even Betty, with the remembrance of certain wild +orgies at school, when quiet Joan Darcy had amazed nuns and girls alike +by a sudden transfiguration, had never gaged to the full her friend's +possibilities. She sang for them daringly whatever came into her head, +negro catches, rollicking Irish lilts, wicked little songs of the +streets and alleys. Under Betty's urgings, she exhibited a talent for +mimicry which had occasionally reduced the good Sisters almost to +apoplexy. + +She showed them her father during a political campaign, addressing his +constituency under the handicap of a cold in the head. One could see the +Major's urbane periods, his mellifluous hand, his tossing topknot--She +showed them the Mother Superior, called in to quell a dormitory riot, +endeavoring while dodging pillows to maintain proper religious +"detachment from place." As an encore she gave them Eduard Desmond, +conducting a sunset _a deux_, with assistance from the poets--a bit of +recklessness that brought shouts of joy from the audience, and produced +in Mrs. Rossiter's mocking eye something like respect. + +"Joie, how _dared_ you!" cried Betty, breathless with laughter, as she +went upstairs with her arm about her friend. "It was Uncle Neddy to his +very hands; that way he has of touching people inadvertently, as if it +were quite by accident. You ought to have seen May Rossiter's face!" + +"I did," said Joan grimly.--Something of the sustaining force had begun +to leave her, and all she asked of life for the moment was to be left +alone. + +But Betty was too delighted with her friend's triumph to be easily +quenched. "It was like old times!" she cried. "Dear old times at school, +when there weren't any men about to spoil things, and the nuns let go +and had a good time like anybody!... Nobody here'll ever think of you +again as just a flirt and a man-grabber! Why, do you know what that man +who came in with Mrs. Jameson said? (He's a clever person, a professor +or something.) He said to Mother, 'Mrs. Desmond, that girl's got a touch +of genius!'" + +"Genius for what--making believe? Much good it does me," said Joan +bitterly.... Would the other never go? + +Betty hugged her. "And to think we were afraid you'd take Uncle Neddy +seriously! Oh, if he could only have seen you!--Jo, _I_ know why you +were in such wild spirits to-night. I'm not going to ask any questions, +because Mother made me promise not to. But you can't deny there is a +sort of coincidence between the fact that you spent the evening up the +river with him, and that to-day he's gone!--now can you?" + +"No," said Joan, "I can't deny that there's--a sort of coincidence." + +"Good-by forever! Good-by-yi-yi forever,'" warbled Betty after Tosti, +somewhat infected by her friend's recent performances. "Fancy the +Irresistible coming another cropper, and at the hands of a mere infant +like you! I suppose I ought to be sorry for him, but I'm not. It'll +teach him to keep his hands off _my_ friends, anyway!" she exclaimed +vindictively. + +"I gather," murmured Joan with a pale smile, "that you did not +altogether fancy me as an aunt?" + +"Rather not! I prefer you 'as is.' Plenty of aunts in the world, and not +so many Joans." + +She went at last, leaving the heroine of the evening to a sleepless +night. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +Morning did not bring the word from Eduard Desmond that Joan told +herself must surely come; the explanation, the excuse, no matter how +bald, which she might go through the form of accepting. Nor did the day +following bring any message. + +On the third day, however, came a basket of candy, a superlative affair +of blue straw, tied with wide blue ribbons and quite realistic +forget-me-nots. Within was the expected communication: + + I never say the ugly word "good-by," if I can help it, + Beautiful. Better to keep intact the memory of our last evening + together. + + From my heart I thank you for what you have given me. Such + experiences do not come twice in a lifetime.--I have learned. + + And you, sweetest of them all, what have you learned? At least + to remember me, I hope! EDUARD. + +Joan read this over and over, incredulously--The cruelty of it, the +sheer, epicurean viciousness, appalled her. She said to herself, like +the man in Hedda Gabler, "But people don't do such things!" + +Evidently they did, and escaped unscathed. She clenched her hands +helplessly. Oh, to be able to tell her father! A rush of primitive +feeling came over her, almost of blood-lust. She wanted vengeance on the +man who had surfeited himself with her innocence, her youth, it seemed +to poor Joan her very soul--and had made amends by sending her a box of +candy! The candy seemed somehow a worse insult than the jewel he had +given her. It mocked her with its triviality. Bon-bons in return +for--what? + +With a groan she swept the offering off the table on to the floor; and +treading confections underfoot at every step, she fled across her room +to the shelter of her bed, where she flung herself face downward. + +WHY? WHY? was the despairing cry of her spirit. How had he dared to +treat her so lightly? What had she done? + +The answer was not far to seek. With a shudder she remembered her +careful study of the role she had chosen to play, her considered +coquetries and sophistications, even her dressing, the display of silken +ankles, of bared arm, her modest decolletage--all weapons she had +employed not quite in ignorance. Precocious instinct and the comments of +her step-mother had taught her much. She had deliberately, and for her +own ends, joined the order of the Brazen Hussies--With this result! + +Joan faced her lesson squarely. But she felt sick, degraded, literally +soiled. This was the sort of thing that happened to girls who "fell." + +She had, for all her reading, a quite hazy idea of what "falling" meant. +For a frantic moment (it must be remembered that Joan's education had +been conducted by religious ladies who paste decent tissue-paper skirts +over offending illustrations in the physiology books)--she struggled +with a nightmare horror that she had perhaps "fallen" herself, that such +a degradation of the spirit might even have physical results.... + +"No, no, _no_!" gasped Joan, "not when I hate him so! It's impossible!" + +For if, according to a rather touching convent theory, it is love alone +which calls children into being, surely hate must have the opposite +effect? + +Joan had not pursued this line of mental research to her usual lengths. +Certain things, it appeared, such as miracles and the power of prayer +and all phenomena embraced under the generic title of Love, were better +taken entirely on trust. + +With ashen cheeks and a heart thumping with terror, Joan put her hands +over her ears to shut out the sound of her own thoughts. It was the +first time in her life she had come face to face with the meaning of the +word "fear." And that the fear was childish, made it none the less real. +Nineteen, not ninety, is the age of tragedy. There are few suicides +among the old.... + +She did not hear a rap twice repeated, nor the opening of the door. +Somebody peeped in, saw the sobbing figure on the bed, the scattered +bon-bons, the crumpled note on the floor. Then came a louder knock. + +Joan sat up, and cried in a panic, "Don't come in!" + +But Mrs. Rossiter chose to misunderstand her. "Did you say come in?" she +inquired cheerfully. "I hope so, because nobody else seems to be at +home, and I'm pining for company." + +She paused as Joan sank back in despair, hiding her ravaged face in her +handkerchief. + +"What's the matter, dear? Headache?" she questioned kindly, adding with +a glance at the overturned basket, "Too much candy, perhaps?" + +"Yes," gulped Joan, fighting for self-control "Too much candy!" + +Mrs. Rossiter selected a _marron_ from the floor with care, wiped it +daintily, and began to eat. "This looks," she said, "like one of Ned +Desmond's offerings. He's such an artist about everything! Who but he +would have thought of selecting a basket to match your eyes?" + +Joan lay still, and hated her. She thought of several biting remarks she +might make to this woman who had come to gloat over her; but +unfortunately she could not yet trust her voice to utter them. + +"So you sent him away after all?" continued the voice smilingly, "Led +him on, and made a fool out of our poor dear Ned, and then sent him +about his business? Naughty Joan!" + +Something impelled the girl to utter frankness. She was done with +acting. "I didn't, and you know I didn't," she gulped. "I accepted him. +I was engaged to him!" + +"Engaged?" + +"Yes!--and then the next day he was gone." + +"Stole away," murmured Mrs. Rossiter amusedly. "That was rather crude of +Eduard. He doesn't usually run to such lengths.... You mean he actually +in so many words invited you to _marry_ him?" + +Joan covered her eyes again. "I suppose not," she said in a small, +miserable voice. "No, he didn't. But he--he kissed me as if we were +engaged, and I kissed him back!" + +"Oh," murmured the other. "You find engaged kisses so very different, +then, from the other kind?" + +Joan cried indignantly, "I don't know anything about the other kind! +I've never kissed a man before in my life." + +"No? 'More kissed against than kissing,' perhaps?" + +The girl lifted her chin as haughtily as it is possible to lift a chin +that is quivering with held-in sobs. "I have never been kissed +either--except on the hand or the ear or something, which doesn't +count." + +"No, that hardly counts," agreed her inquisitor, looking at the girl +quite curiously. "See here," she asked in another tone, "how old are +you, Miss Darcy?" + +"Nineteen." + +"Hmmn! Younger than I thought. Still, a Southern girl--" + +"Can be just as decent as any other kind!" cried angry Joan. "Anyway, +I'm only part a Southern girl. But I know! Lots of them are just as nice +about such things as Betty, for instance." + +"Nice, of course," agreed Mrs. Rossiter. "And tremendously attractive. +But just for that reason a little more--well, experienced, don't you +think? We get our experience later, perhaps.... And you seemed +particularly well-seasoned, able to take care of yourself, playing them +off against each other like a little veteran. I've told Jane Desmond so +more than once. She wanted to warn you--but I told her you knew the +ropes." + +"I didn't," said Joan tremulously, "Warn me of what?" + +"Why, of Ned. She was afraid you might really land him. The wariest of +fish takes the hook at last!" + +Joan winced at the remark, but she was too busy getting to the bottom of +things to resent it. + +"Why did she object to my marrying him?" + +Mrs. Rossiter stared. "Good Lord! Well, because she's got a girl of her +own, for one thing. Because she's married to a Desmond herself, for +another. She knows the breed, poor Jane!" + +Light was breaking on Joan. "You mean--she objected for _my_ sake?" + +"Of course!" said Mrs. Rossiter rather impatiently. "Ned's all right as +a brother-in-law, useful to have about, to run errands, etc. One has to +have a man in the house, and she's really rather fond of him. But to +marry him off to a fresh young girl like you!--No, no, Jane's not that +sort." + +"Oh," said Joan faintly. She began to realize that instead of +antagonism, it had been friendliness that watched her, motherly, anxious +kindness, which she had been too blind to understand. + +"Oh, Mrs. Rossiter," she cried tremulously, "I've been horrid!" + +"Bless you, no. It's Ned who was horrid, I suspect--men are. Votes for +Women, eh? Be glad you've found it out in time.... But you fooled me, +you know; and to do Ned justice, I think you fooled him. He's not +altogether a cad. I've never known him try cradle-snatching before. He +usually prefers to play the game with people who understand, married +women or widdy-ladies of mature years, or--well, the professional +charmer." + +"Ugh! You speak as if there'd been dozens of us!" + +"So there have. Dozens! And there are dozens of him, too. Amorists, you +know, dilettantes, non-eligibles--the bane of all good chaperones. +'Gather the rosebuds while ye may' effect. They make quite a business of +it, I assure you; or rather an art. 'The secret of enjoyment is to know +the exact moment when one has attained the maximum--and to stop there'! +Haven't you heard him say it?" She laughed rather mirthlessly, and Joan +did not join her. + +After a moment the older woman left the arm of the chair where she had +been perched boyishly, with swinging leg, nibbling her _marron_. She +walked about the room, and then came and sat beside Joan on the bed. Her +voice had become rather shy. + +"Joan," she asked, "did you--care, my dear?" + +The girl turned her burning face away. "I don't know," she whispered. +"How does one know?--I thought about him all the time, and sometimes I +didn't want him at all, and sometimes--I did.--And now I wish my father +would _kill_ him!" + +The other shook her head. "That's not it, then. You'd know! Even at the +worst," she said quietly, "if my father had killed him, I should have +wanted--to kill my father." + +Joan forgot herself in sheer astonishment. "You!" she cried. "But I +thought it was you who declined to marry him, even after you'd got a +divorce to do it?" + +Mrs. Rossiter smiled queerly. + +"Did Ned tell you that?" + +Joan, much embarrassed, explained the Convent impression of Mr. Desmond +and his broken heart. + +The other laughed. "So that's the idea he has allowed to get abroad? +Nice of him. Ned always was a gentleman--and I suppose it does put him +in a better light, too--But unfortunately the facts of the case are +otherwise. I did get a divorce to marry him--not that he suggested it, +oh, dear, no! That would have been too crude. It simply seemed to me the +honest thing to do, and my husband agreed with me--So I took up my +residence in Dakota. And when I came back, quite free and marriageable, +Eduard happened to be in Brittany, painting." + +"And then?--" prompted Joan, round-eyed at this little glimpse behind +the scenes. + +"That's all. There wasn't any 'then.' Eduard remained in Brittany, +painting. The episode was over, you see. Presently I married Rossiter. +One couldn't pine away like a love-lorn housemaid!" + +"Don't laugh," said Joan hoarsely. "It's too awful!" Her hand gripped +the other's. "Oh, how can you bear to _speak_ to him?" + +May Rossiter shrugged. "You don't suppose it lasts, you funny innocent? +Besides, though he did cost me a few illusions and some suffering and a +reputation (what's a reputation among friends?), I owe Ned Desmond one +very good turn. Jim Rossiter's the best husband of my acquaintance." + +She leaned over swiftly and kissed Joan on the cheek. + +"So you see you're not the only silly little simpleton who learns her +ropes by tripping on them. Makes you feel better, doesn't it? Of course! +That's why I told you.... Look here, what's the use of wasting all this +perfectly good candy? Jane's floors are above suspicion. Let's pick it +up and take it downstairs and make a Roman holiday, shall we?" + +Between them, with some laughter and a very real sense of comradeship, +they restored Eduard's peace-offering to its basket. Then Joan +remembered her bracelet. + +"What shall I do with it?" she asked, aghast. "If I return it now, it +will look--offended, as if I had taken him seriously!" + +"Which would never do," Mrs. Rossiter was quick to agree. She examined +the bracelet with interest. "Sapphires, emeralds, nice little +diamonds--dear, dear! And a Chartier setting. Ned must have had it +rather badly. He never gave _me_ anything so compromising! Keep it, of +course," she advised cynically. "It's a nice bit of jewelry, and you may +as well have something decent for a souvenir." + +But Joan's hardihood was not equal to that. + +"Well, then"--the other's eye sparkled with sudden malice--"why not give +it to me for a parting present! Splendid! Fancy his expression when he +recognizes his _gage d'amour_ glittering on my wrist, of all wrists in +the world! And, believe me, he shall recognize it--What ho! Votes for +Women!" + +She laughed until she cried. + + * * * * * + +When Joan said good-by to Longmeadow some days later--not so soon as to +give her departure the appearance of flight--she left trailing clouds of +glory. The rumor had got about, thanks perhaps to Mrs. Rossiter, that +the redoubtable Eduard had met his Waterloo at the hands of the Kentucky +girl, which seemed not to detract from her popularity among Eduard's +friends, male or female. She became quite legendary in the countryside. + +Betty, fully restored to her earlier allegiance, parted from her with +tears, and Mrs. Desmond made her promise to visit them soon again. + +But it was a promise Joan knew she would not have the courage to keep. +And when she had waved her last gay farewell, and thrown her last kiss +impartially out of the window to the group who had come into town to see +her off, she settled back in the train which had brought her with such +high hopes to her first failure, and said aloud, "Thank goodness that's +over!" + +"Pardon _me_--did you speak?" murmured a young man in the seat in front +of her, turning round with a start; a wide-eared young man whom Joan +recognized. + +"Goodness!" she said in some dismay. "You seem to dog my footsteps, Mr. +Blair. There's no escaping you!" + +"Looks that way, don't it?" he grinned apologetically. "I've been in +Philadelphia on a big order--Landed it, too!" he added in irrepressible +triumph. + +"Which is more than I did," sighed Joan; and guessing from her +expression that a jest was intended, Mr. Blair laughed long and loudly. +He was always very keen on the scent of a jest. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +It was owing to this fortuitous train journey that one night, some weeks +later, Mr. Archibald Blair found himself moving in what he considered +very high society indeed. In the years when he had peddled papers on the +street corners, or padded around with them on thin and sturdy legs of a +Sabbath dawn, so that the world might have its news with its coffee and +griddle-cakes for breakfast, Archie had amused himself and added to his +mastery of his native tongue by reading an occasional account of a Galt +House Ball. + + "Social Event of the Season Magnificent Affair Given Last + Evening To Mark The Debut into Society of" etc., etc. + +And here he was himself, part and parcel of a Galt House Ball! It was +quite amazing. + +Archibald Blair was no snob; but to him, as to many another of the +world's workers, "Society" represented a world apart, a sort of +fairyland in which creatures of an order far superior to ordinary humans +lived and moved and had their lovely being--feminine creatures, of +course. About the male of the species he had no illusions. They were +merely the same Charlies, Toms, and Georges one knew down town, and with +whom one had played baseball or marbles or shinny, transformed by glad +rags (the language is Archie's) into temporary black-tailed butterflies. +They did not fool him for a moment. When he caught a familiar and +surprised eye belonging to one of them, which he did more than once, he +grinned and winked. In return, the owner of the eye called out, "Why, +hello, Arch!" or, "Glad to see you, Blair!" in very friendly fashion, +for Archibald was a popular youth among his acquaintance. + +But they did not introduce him to their girls. + +Archie was not chagrined. On the rare occasions when he took Miss Emma +from the cashier's desk, or Miss Grace, the prettiest office +stenographer, to a dance-hall, he was careful himself about whom he +introduced to them. Fellows were often well enough with fellows, when +they wouldn't do for one's lady-friends. Girls had to be choosy. (Again +the language is Archibald's.) + +He stood alone on the edge of the whirling throng with a pleased, +unconscious smile on his face, watching for the girl he had come to see, +wondering if it would be all right if he asked her to dance. In the +society he had hitherto frequented--or rather sampled, and found not +altogether satisfactory--a fellow danced only with the girl he had taken +with him, or perhaps, if it had been arranged beforehand, with the +partner of some friend, who in turn danced with his partner. Here things +seemed to be done differently. A line of young men hovered on the edge +of the dancers, and every now and then one would swoop in amongst them +and seize the lady of his choice away from her partner seemingly by main +force, a sort of modern Rape of the Sabines. + +"Gee!" said Archibald to himself, watching. "Gee! But that takes a +nerve." + +However, life on the whole does take a nerve, as he had long since +discovered. + +He had, he supposed, as good a right to try it as the rest. The engraved +card of invitation was in his pocket--nobody had taken it from him at +the door. His broadcloth tails were as long and as neatly fitting as +anybody's--the invitation having arrived at a fortunate time when the +order he had landed in Philadelphia made it possible to buy himself a +hitherto unnecessary dress suit. It is true that he had used up almost a +box of lawn ties before he could get the proper touch to his bow, and +even now the result should have proved indubitably that he was not a +necktie drummer. He made a mental note to ask his friend Jakie +Florsheimer of the Gents' Furnishing at Morehouse's what he could do to +keep the blamed thing from riding up on him. Still, his final view of +himself in the washstand mirror had not been discouraging. + +"Some boy," he had murmured to himself, in the absence of a less partial +critic. + +So now he tensed the muscles of his jaw, and waited his chance, +nervously. + +How wonderful they were, these slim, delicate creatures whirling by, +with their white arms and backs, their tiny feet slippered in silver and +gold, their soft laughter, their eager, luring eyes smiling over the +shoulders of the fortunate youths who embraced them! Archibald grew +quite dizzy with the scene, and stood at gaze as certain dazzled +mariners may have gazed upon the Lorelei, to their undoing. + +"This is the life!" he said to himself, decidedly. There was not a pay +dance-hall in town that could touch it. + +Other connoisseurs more experienced than Archibald Blair have looked +with delight upon a Galt House Ball--and will look no more, alas! Along +the broad corridor behind the ballroom picked experts were wont to +congregate early in every season to inspect Louisville's latest +contribution to the beauty of the race, comparing points and +conformation, class, speed, and endurance, as knowingly as such things +are later discussed at Churchill Downs. Indeed, Louisville may be said +to be, in some matters, a city of experts. The youth who sells you your +cigar, the newsie who provides you with an evening edition, should +without a moment's hesitation be able to tell you the name of two things +on demand: the Derby winner and the season's beauty. + +So Archibald was in a measure prepared for what he saw. Anticipations of +it had kept him awake at night. His trouble was in the midst of so much +loveliness to fix his ravished attention upon the finding of one face. + +When he found it at last, however, his eye did not again wander. He was +a young man whose head rarely contained more than one idea at a time--a +fact which perhaps accounted for his growing success in the selling end +of the business. + +He let her pass the first time out of sheer pleasure of the sight of her +in motion. Joan was wearing, as she usually wore nowadays, an odd shade +of blue, very much the color of the orchids at her waist. In the hand on +her partner's arm she carried another bouquet, of violets; and the +second time she passed she had exchanged this for a third, of pink +roses. From which it may be gathered that Louisville was at last waking +up to the attractions of our heroine. + +Archibald wished suddenly that he had sent her a bouquet himself, but +decided that she might have thought it "fresh." + +"Unless I was to send it just 'From a Friend'?" he thought, his eye +brightening. + +She had changed partners on each appearance, as well as bouquets; and +the third time she was dancing with a portly gentleman who one-stepped +so majestically, so benignly, that their passage down the room was a +sort of royal progress. + +"Why, the gay old guy!" thought Archibald, surprised; and decided that +this was the moment for his grand coup. Girls like that should not have +to dance with parties old enough to know better. + +He stepped up to the couple as he had seen others do, and slapped Major +Darcy on the back, remarking with the excessive nonchalance which is the +result of nervousness, "So long, old top! Back to the tall timbers for +you." + +The Major turned and stared, really uncertain as to whether it could be +himself who was thus addressed. + +"It's Mr. Blair, Dad," explained Joan hurriedly, "who was so nice to me +on the train; don't you remember?" + +The Major still stared. But innate hospitality triumphed: and perhaps +there was something disarming, too, in the wide-apart front teeth of Mr. +Blair, which, as Joan had previously observed, gave him an oddly +innocent expression. + +"Very well, young top!" he murmured courteously, "I surrender my +daughter to your mercies." + +The two danced away, Blair holding his prize as if he did not know quite +what to do with her now that he had got her. + +"For goodness' sake, take _hold_ of me!" she instructed after a moment. +"I feel as if I were about to float out of your grasp. I won't break, +you know!" + +Archie obediently held her tighter, murmuring, "Pardon _me_!" + +He danced surprisingly well, as if he were really listening to the +music, Joan thought. She did not trouble to talk to him, therefore. + +"So that was your father," he said after a long and anxious silence. +"Why, he's a peach, hopping around like that at his age!" + +"Rather more of a pear, don't you think? As to figure?" suggested Joan; +for the Major's tendency to _embonpoint_ had increased remarkably since +his marriage. + +Blair threw back his head and gently roared. He was one of the people +who always made Joan feel herself a wit of the first water. + +Yet she was a little sorry he had come to-night. She had sent him the +card to her debut ball by way of repaying an obligation. He had been +very thoughtful on the train about getting her fruit and papers--almost +too thoughtful; and had insisted, somewhat to Joan's embarrassment, on +paying for the two meals they had taken together in the dining-car. She +did not care to remain in debt to a stranger; hence the invitation. But +she had not, somehow, expected him to take advantage of it. + +Since he was here, however, she must do what she could for him. She knew +what it was to be a stranger in a gay throng. + +"Do you know any girls?" she asked. + +"Not to speak to--though I've seen some of the young ladies on the +street, of course. This is the first time I've ever been out in +Society," he explained simply. + +"Yes? I'm a debutante too, you know. And how do you like Society, so +far?" + +"Fine, fine!" he told her. "Better even than I thought it was. Makes the +movie pictures of it look sort of silly." + +"You ought to go to the Horse Show next week if you find this sort of +thing interesting. I hear it is to be something splendiferous!" + +"I will," he assured her, earnestly. + +"And now I'd better introduce you to some other people." She shook her +head smilingly at a youth who was about to touch him on the shoulder. +After all, one owes something to the duties of hospitality. "Though +really you don't have to _meet_ girls at a thing like this before you +ask them to dance. I don't know the names of half the men I dance with." + +"You don't?" he repeated incredulously, wondering what Miss Emma or Miss +Grace would think of that! He decided not to tell them. "I reckon I'd +rather be introduced first though, if you don't mind," he +murmured--"I--I wouldn't know just what to call 'em." + +Laughing, she stopped with the music, and on an impulse of sheer +mischief guided him toward the exclusive young person who had once made +her unhappy at the Country Club, one Miss Emily Carmichael. She was not +too exclusive, it appeared, to come to the Darcy ball; which she did not +seem to be thoroughly enjoying, however. + +"Ask her to dance--she needs it," murmured Joan _sotto voce_ as they +approached. + +"Sure thing," replied Archibald; and as soon as Joan had pronounced the +formula: "Miss Carmichael, Mr. Blair," he said promptly, "Be pleased to +have the pleasure of the next turn, Miss Carmichael." + +Joan went off with another partner, chuckling. She felt that scores were +even. + +Blair's face fell at this desertion. "Oh, but say," he called after her, +"can't I dance with you any more?" + +"Whenever you like! Just come and tap my partner and carry me off as you +did before. But," she added with a parting twinkle, "I don't believe I'd +call him 'old top' again!" + +Archibald flushed and understood. "All right," he said meekly. "I'll +just call him 'Say,' instead." + +He tapped her partner with some frequency after that, though not often +enough to be annoying; and Joan also noticed amusedly that he danced a +great deal with Miss Carmichael, who seemed quite willing. Exclusiveness +was evidently in abeyance at a ball. + +Sometimes when they passed each other she called out pleasantly, "Having +a good time, debutant?" and he answered in the vernacular of the moment, +"Fine and dandy!" + +She said, during one of their brief turns together, "You seem to be +getting on beautifully with that girl I introduced you to." + +"Who? Miss Carmichael? She's all to the mustard, isn't she! Asked me to +come and eat supper with her to-night." + +"She did?" exclaimed Joan, surprised. + +"Yes. You see I know her brother--put on gloves with him sometimes at +the Y. M. C. A. And it seems he's told her about me," explained Archie. + +"Oh!" Joan looked with new interest at his broad shoulders, his +straight, supple back. She understood suddenly the lift and spring and +untiring ease of his dancing, which was not grace exactly, but something +just as good. He was an athlete. She began to feel quite pleased with +her protege. With a little pruning as to speech and general behavior, he +would make a rather presentable ballroom adjunct. His manner with women +was really nice. + +One other besides Joan watched Archie's progress with interest. At the +door of the dressing-room Ellen Neal, in her Sunday costume of +claret-colored serge with collar and cuffs of homemade Battenberg lace, +gazed proudly out upon the scene of her nurseling's triumphs, having +been unable to resist Mrs. Darcy's invitation to assist on so memorable +an occasion. She had removed countless evening wraps and carriage +slippers, assisted deftly, albeit with prim lips, at the powdering of +countless backs and bosoms, and now followed with adoring eyes a certain +slim blue figure that appeared and disappeared among the dancers. + +"Land," she thought. "If her mama could only see her now! The swellest +among the swell! And with a dress on her little back that cost that +woman a hundred dollars, if it cost a cent. She's got as many partners +as any of 'em--and why wouldn't she, then, I'd like to know?" + +Archibald had promised to look her up during the evening, but boylike +had forgotten the old friend in quest of the new. She forgave him for +it, though she would have liked very much to exchange impressions with +somebody. Her pride was bursting for utterance. + +Presently he came and stood quite near her, with only the width of the +corridor between them. His back was turned as he stood looking out over +the ballroom floor. + +"Sst" called Ellen. "Psst! Mr. Archie!" She dared not leave her post for +fear people would come for wraps or powder, and find only a colored +woman to wait on them, which would never do. (Ellen continued to regard +the colored race as a cross between the monkey and the magpie, with +leanings toward the magpie.) + +"Psst! Hey there!" she called. + +But Archie's mind was far away from Ellen Neal, and he did not hear her. +He was anathematizing Jakie Florsheimer of the Gents' Furnishings at the +moment for not having suggested white kid gloves to him. More than once +his clumsy bare hand, struggle against it as he might, had come in +contact with the delicate bare shoulder of one of his partners; and +Archibald felt that if such a catastrophe should occur when he was +dancing with Miss Darcy, the earth might just as well open and engulf +him permanently. She would never forgive him--and indeed why should she? +A man ought to have known by instinct about those reverential gloves. + +So he stood frowning out upon the ballroom, heedless of Ellen's hisses; +and in this way the old woman happened to be the unnoted witness of a +rather curious scene. + +Mrs. Darcy came tripping down the corridor alone, for the moment, having +been out to inspect preparations for supper. She did not believe in +leaving so important a matter as supper entirely to the hands of paid +assistants, no matter how well paid. She was resplendent in rose brocade +and spangles, her small plump feet encased in cloth-of-gold, a little +fishtail train of cloth-of-gold whisking behind her. Her hair positively +glittered, it was so golden, and her face was overspread with a rosy +bloom that always intrigued her step-daughter because of its unnatural +evenness, as if she had not simply rouged, but dipped her face in a +permanent elixir of youth that outdid youth itself. Joan had never +caught her with her face bare, as it were, even at the most unlikely +hours. + +Mrs. Darcy paused at sight of a young man standing by himself, gazing +out with a wistful frown at the gaiety before him; and her hospitable +heart smote her. She tapped his arm with her fan. + +"Kind o' lonesome?" she said. "Come on in and dance with me." + +He turned with a start. His eyes took her in from top to toe, and +suddenly narrowed. "No, thanks," he said curtly. "What are _you_ doing +here, anyway?" + +Effie May drew back. She looked, as Ellen expressed it to herself, +"flabbergasted." + +"Why! Who do you think I am?" + +He continued to stare at her with those narrowed, steady eyes. + +"I don't know, and I don't care. It's easy enough to see _what_ you are! +You'd better go, hadn't you?" suggested Archibald grimly. "This is a +private affair. Invitation only." + +By this time the startled lady had recovered her poise. "You're making a +mistake, young man," she replied quietly, "This happens to be _my_ +private affair. I am Mrs. Darcy." + +It was his turn to be flabbergasted. + +"_Her mother?_" + +"Miss Darcy's step-mother," said Effie May, with some dignity. + +She continued to meet his gaze, which did not lower, though he had gone +quite pale. + +"The joke's on me," he muttered at last. "It's I who'd better go, I +guess. Pardon _me_!" + +She inclined her head without speaking. + +He still continued to look at her, as if puzzled. "My mistake," he said +again. "If your husband wants me at any time, my name is Blair, Mrs. +Darcy--Archibald Blair." + +"He won't want you," said Effie May. "Good night." + +Ellen Neal, aghast, watched him turn on his heel and leave. + +"Land!" she said to herself. "Land sakes! He's gone and done for himself +now, the young idjit!" + +When she turned again, she saw Mrs. Darcy refreshing herself with a +glass of "Dick Fizz" at the punch bowl. She seemed to need it. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +But Effie May's amiability was proof even against this trying episode. +She said to Joan, the day after the ball, when they were talking things +over in unusual intimacy, "By the way, who's the young fellow that +danced so much with you last night--a sort of broad, odd chap he was, +with ears? I don't think I've seen him before." + +"Oh, Mr. Blair," Joan smiled at the description. "He danced with me so +much because he didn't know any one else." + +"A stranger here? Where does he come from?" + +"I don't know--the slums, I fancy. Ask Ellen Neal. He's a pal of hers. +But he's a Louisville product, I believe." + +Effie May glanced at her casually, "Didn't you like him, dearie?" + +"Oh, well enough. Did you?" + +"Yes," said the other, "I did. He's honest, and he stands up so +straight--doesn't sort of droop over a girl as if his spine was feeble, +like some of 'em do. I like a chap to stand up on his own two pins." + +"But his ears, Effie May!" + +"Oh, well, what's ears? Just means that his mother forgot to tuck 'em +into his cap when he was a baby. Now if his eyes bulged out, that would +be another thing. You look out for any man with a bulging eye, Joan." + +"Very well," she agreed, "I will. What's dangerous about a bulging eye?" + +"Stoopidity, girlie. Just plain bone-headedness. And if there's anything +in the world more dangerous than that, I don't know it!--Let's ask your +eary young man again to something, shall we?" + +"I begin to think he's _your_ eary young man!" smiled Joan. + +Sometimes she almost forgot herself and liked her step-mother. There was +something so human about the woman.... + +So it happened that Mr. Blair was delighted and amazed and a little +perturbed to receive a few days later a note from Joan Darcy, inviting +him to sit on a certain evening in the Darcy box at the impending Horse +Show. One of the Darcy guests had failed at the last moment, and Joan +had accepted the suggestion that she ask her protege. + +He rushed downstairs to spread the glad tidings to Ellen, who was in +turn surprised and a little perturbed. She had not imagined "that woman" +so forgiving. But then Ellen was a person who did nothing by halves. +Justice to the enemy was not in her creed. Where she hated, she hated. + +"Just look at it!" exulted Mr. Blair, exhibiting his note. "She asks for +'the pleasure of my company'! She 'hopes a previous engagement won't +prevent'! (It won't.) All in her own hand, mind you!" + +"What did you expect--typewriting?" commented Ellen, a little tartly. +She was always tart when pleased. + +Next arose the question of what to wear. Those people who fancy that +this question confines itself to the lighter-minded sex have much to +learn. They have not watched a youth of twenty-five--or thirty-five--or +sixty-five--trying to ascertain in advance whether long or short tails +shall grace a particular occasion. And if there is a more pitiable +spectacle than the misery of a man appearing, say, in sack-suit and +brown boots, where others of his sex gleam as to bosom and foot-gear, +the author has yet to see it. Whereas any woman worth her salt, who +happens to be dressed in hat and jacket among much decolletage, can +manage to make the other women present feel immodest. + +Ellen Neal was of no help to Mr. Blair at this crisis. He consulted once +more the oracle, Jakie Florsheimer. Archie had been to the Horse Show +before, of course, but merely to see horses. This was a very different +matter. Even Mr. Florsheimer admitted himself doubtful. + +"You see, it's like this," he said, scratching his curly head. "If you +was to go in a sporting way, y' see, I'd say a natty little sack, +checked maybe, with one of our $3.99 plaid vests, and a Derby hat. But +sitting in one of them boxes with society girls, all dolled up like they +are, y' see--honest, I don't know would it be better to wear your +swallow-tail or yet a frock with light stripe pants. Search me, Arch! +You got me guessing." + +Mr. Blair raised the question among his fellow employees without +obtaining satisfaction, and at last in his desperation actually tackled +the head of the firm, whose name sometimes appeared in the newspapers as +among those present. + +Thanks to this gentleman's surprised advice, Archibald made a most +proper appearance on the night appointed, and this time gloves were not +forgotten. Also, during the course of the afternoon, Joan received a +mysterious bouquet of roses bearing the legend, "From a Friend." + +She chuckled over this quite affectionately. "He's funny," she thought, +"but he's really a dear!" + +Archibald was very much surprised when she thanked him for the roses, +and deeply relieved that she did not seem to think him "fresh." + +"How did you guess it was me?" he wondered. + +"Well--I haven't so many 'friends' whom it might have been." + +"_You?_"--His incredulity was flattering. + +She smiled. "Not many who would not want their generosity known, Mr. +Blair. Usually in our world, when people do things for one they like to +get full credit for it. They even expect a return in kind!" + +Lightly as she spoke, her tone troubled him. Glancing at her furtively, +he realized that this was not the little girl he had first seen in +haughty tears on the train, and yearned over because she seemed too +young to know the meaning of trouble. Now she was infinitely more +approachable, but also, somehow, infinitely farther away. If he was not +mistaken she had learned very thoroughly the meaning of trouble. There +was a listless droop of the lids, a slightly weary inflection of the +bright voice, that did not "belong." He remembered her as serious and +dreamy. She had become gay and wary. It was a change he did not like. + +But he liked Joan. He liked her almost too well. Never did a heart more +chivalrous beat beneath a $3.99 waistcoat; and if he had not long ere +this become a notable squire of dames, it was simply for lack of the +opportunity. Most of the dames he knew seemed so amply able to take care +of themselves. + +The evening under these conditions became almost as glorious an occasion +as the ball had been. True, he saw little of Joan, because other men +came and went constantly in the box, and frequently took her away with +them to stroll around the ring. Despite Mrs. Darcy's seemingly oblivious +amiability, he could not talk to her with any comfort. He had no skill +to hide the stiffness with which her presence affected him, and after a +few kind-hearted attempts to put him at ease, she left him to the Major +entirely. But that suited Archibald very well. He admired the Major +tremendously, aside from the fact that he was Joan's father. + +"A perfect gentleman," he pronounced him inwardly, taking envious note +of his manners, his well-fitting, soft-bosomed shirt, the mellifluous +tones of his really beautiful voice. + +Major Darcy, always at his best before an admiring audience, produced +some of his neatest anecdotes for this appreciative guest, and they +presently entered into a learned and congenial discussion of the Horse, +expert knowledge of which was part of their mutual birthright. It was a +proud young man who later strolled out to the bar for liquid refreshment +with Richard Darcy's arm thrust carelessly through his. Archibald had +within him great possibilities for hero-worship. + +It may have been the liquid refreshment which finally gave him courage +to propose to Joan that she stroll with him around the ring, as she had +strolled with others. At any rate, he shortly found himself part of that +meandering show of debutantes and others, which rivaled, if it did not +eclipse, the exhibit on the tanbark. He, Archie Blair, in a high silk +topper, escorting a vision in a picture-hat with a plume, and a long +gray velvet coat, and silvery furs around her neck, the price of which +would almost have bought him an education! + +He felt that at any moment a bouncer might discover him, and walk up to +murmur sinisterly in his ear, "Out this way!" + +But none did. Now and then Joan stopped and introduced him to other +visions, who gushed and babbled, asking whether she was going to +So-and-so's luncheon, and who was taking her to such-and-such a +cotillion, and what she was going to wear to the next costume ball. He +noticed that she neither gushed nor babbled in return, but seemed +pleasantly aloof, a little _distrait_, as if she were an older woman +listening to children. + +"Business of being a society girl," he commented once, half to himself. + +She gave him a smiling glance. "Yes," she said, "it has a lingo like any +other trade." + +"But _you_ don't speak it." + +"I think perhaps it's not my trade." + +He asked, greatly daring, "What is, then?" + +"I don't know," said Joan, "yet." + +Just then a rather dissipated-looking boy with his hat on the back of +his head passed them, and paused. + +"Oh, Blair!" he said, lifting his hat to Joan. + +"Hello, Carmichael!" Archie greeted him. + +"My sister told me to tell you you'd better come to our box and +apologize. She says you were to take supper with her at some ball or +other, and never turned up." + +"Oh, gee!" exclaimed Archie, remorsefully, "I forgot it; clean as a +whistle!" + +"Better come and grovel, then," grinned the other, and passed on. + +Joan looked at him in amusement. "Do you mean to say you never took +Emily Carmichael out to supper after she had asked you to? What are you +going to say to her?" + +"That I forgot," said Archie simply. He certainly could not explain that +the cause of his forgetfulness was the _contretemps_ of having requested +his hostess under a misapprehension to leave her own entertainment! + +Joan chuckled. "Well! I'm certainly glad I didn't ask you to have supper +with me!" + +"I wouldn't have forgotten that," said Archibald. + +She looked at him out of the corner of her eyes. It was said neither +shyly not gallantly nor boldly, simply as a statement of fact. + +Joan was very tired of flirtation just then. She shied away from any +hint of the personal like a burnt child in the vicinity of fire. She had +no desire for further victims of her bow and spear; but she did want +friends. It occurred to her that this frank, tactless, simple young man +might do very well in that capacity. + +"Take me right back to our box," she commanded, "and go and make your +peace with Miss Carmichael! Don't you know you can't afford to +antagonize such a power at court?" + +He obeyed meekly. With quite a proprietary interest, she watched his +awkward entry into the enemy's country, his introduction to Carmichael +_pere_ and Carmichael _mere_, a lady who looked on life (the Darcys +included) through a rather invidious lorgnon. This lorgnon trained +itself on Archibald at close range. + +"Poor Mr. Blair!" thought Joan. + +But a little while later she was surprised to see that her protege and +Mrs. Carmichael had joined the ranks of the strollers and were chatting +and laughing together with quite an air of old friendship. He looked up +at her as they passed, shyly, and Joan clapped her hands softly to +indicate approval. + +The last ring of horses was showing when he finally returned. + +"Well," Joan rallied him. "I thought you'd gone over to the enemy for +good!" + +"Judge Carmichael and I were talking over old times when I used to sell +him papers," explained Archibald. "I reminded him of a day when he +treated me to a pair of shoes because he said my toes sticking out made +him feel chilly.... But are they your enemies?" + +Joan bit her lip. She did not like her self-consciousness about the +Carmichaels. "Really, I don't know," she said indifferently. "They +certainly are not my friends." + +"I think they'd like to be, though!" remarked the unexpected Archie. +"Miss Carmichael said you were the only one of the debutantes who looked +worth while, and she asked a lot of questions about you and your father, +and said she would have been to see you long ago, except for--" He +stopped abruptly. He had almost finished the quotation _verbatim_. + +Joan flushed. "I trust you were able to give her a good account of us!" +she remarked haughtily. + +Archie answered in all innocence. "I told her Mrs. Darcy was your +step-mother." + +Despite her annoyance, Joan had to laugh at that. After all it was too +absurd, this protege of hers, this discovery out of the slums, standing +sponsor for the Darcy family with the Carmichaels!... + +It did not occur to her to invite him to call. She had not as yet +plumbed the depths of his social ignorance. He stood down-cast +throughout the leave-takings, the remarks of "See you to-morrow," and +"One o'clock lunch, did you say?" realizing that this wonderful evening +was over, and not daring to hope that such luck would come his way a +third time. He looked rather like a big, humble puppy that is about to +be shut out of the house at night. + +It was Effie May who noticed the resemblance. "Be sure you pay your two +party-calls promptly, Mr. Blair," was her parting suggestion. "And if +you happen to be at the Horse Show any other night this week, drop in at +our box, you know." + +"Yes 'm! yes 'm, I certainly will," he replied to both these +hints--stiffly, because it was the only way he could manage to speak to +this lady. But his ears were quite pink with pleasure. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +On Joan's return from Longmeadow she had found her family already +beginning to prepare for what was by far the most ambitious effort +undertaken by Effie May as yet: her formal debut into society. Joan, +rather alarmed, protested. She wished nothing so much at the moment as +to be allowed to slip into some inconspicuous corner and recover her +lost confidence. She was in no mood for a continuation of an empty +social career, particularly under the aegis of her father's wife. Other +plans were beginning to formulate vaguely in her head, and she wanted +leisure to perfect them. + +But here for the first time she came into direct contact with the +amiable, easy-going, unescapable persistence she had before suspected in +her step-mother, and which made her feel as helpless as a caged rabbit; +a much indulged and petted rabbit, to be sure, in which it was sheer +ingratitude not to love its cage. Effie May used neither argument nor +explanation. She simply went her chosen way, and the rest of the +household perforce accompanied her. + +Joan, herself not unaccustomed to pursuing her own path, did not submit +without a struggle. The difficulty was to bring the matter out into the +open. Effie May had a habit of taking things for granted that made +discussion gratuitous. + +"Father," Joan said determinedly one night at dinner, when the two +elders were discussing the details of the impending ball, "why do we +give a ball, anyway? It's not as if we were under many obligations to +people--rather the contrary. And what's the point of entertaining for me +in this wholesale way, when I do not wish to be a debutante?" + +"Don't _wish_ to be a debutante?" cried the astonished gentleman. "Why, +my child, the pollywog might as well decide that it does not wish to be +a frog! At a certain age young women of a certain position naturally +have to be presented to society. What else is there for them to do?" + +"Oh, lots of things," said the girl with impatient vagueness. "They can +be teachers or librarians, or--stenographers, or journalists--something +useful, you know." + +"Never," said the Major with pained emphasis, "while I am alive and able +to support her, shall a daughter of mine step out of that station in +life to which it has pleased God to call her! No lady of my family has +yet, I thank God, been under the necessity of becoming anything +'useful'--Useful! Absurd!" + +(Joan had a momentary vision of her frail mother at sewing-machine and +housework; the three Misses Darcy struggling to make ends meet by means +of paying guests who did not always pay.) + +"May I ask," continued her father with a dignity that verged upon +acerbity, "the reason for this sudden desire on your part to be +'useful'? It is a desire usually confined, I think, to ladies who have +ceased to be ornamental," he added, with a gallant inclination in her +direction. + +"Oh, Dad, you know what I mean!" she said rather desperately. "I simply +want to be independent." + +"And where can you be more independent than under your father's roof?" +he demanded. "Free to come and go as you choose, free to entertain your +friends as you like, to make what purchases you will, to run up accounts +at the shops--" + +"And without a penny I can call my own!" blurted out Joan. + +"As to that," he remarked with a shrug of distaste, "you have merely to +come to your father, my child." + +"Exactly," said Joan bitterly. + +Here Effie May entered the arena, fighting as usual upon the side of her +victim. "The girl's right. She ought to have her own allowance--as you +were saying only last night, Dickie." + +"Was I?'" murmured the Major. "Yes, yes, so I was! An allowance of--How +much did I say, my darling?" + +"Two hundred dollars a month," prompted his darling. "Do you think you +could manage on that, Joan?" + +The girl lifted shamed eyes to her step-mother. She could not bear to +look at her father, puffing himself out with conscious pride. + +"Very well," she said in a low voice. "I'll be a debutante since you +wish it--I'll spend the money and wear the clothes you provide, and eat +the food you give me--but understand me! I'm only doing it because I +have no choice." + +She suddenly turned and ran out of the room. The Major stared after her, +blankly. + +"What's come over the child? She used to be so sweet-tempered and +reasonable, grateful for everything. All this nonsense about +independence! What does she mean by it, anyway?" + +"She simply means she wants a man of her own, like every blessed +mother's daughter of us," explained Effie May comfortably, "and that's +what I'm trying to help her to, and it makes her sort of ashamed because +she's got to be helped. That's all!... Say, old pet--" she seated +herself upon his knee, as was her cosy custom when opportunity +offered--"who's this chap Nikolai, anyway, that's always writing to her? +He gives her some pretty good presents. That piece of aquamarine he sent +her when she graduated--it's worth a lot of money. Is he rich?" + +"He's a very successful writer, I believe." + +"Hmm! Old? _Too_ old, I mean?" + +"For what?" + +"Why, for Joan, old duckie." + +"Joan?" repeated the Major vaguely. He had for the moment lost interest +in his daughter's affairs. The ex-widow Calloway made rather a luscious +armful. He roused himself to the required attention, however. "For Joan? +Why, good gad! the man's old enough to be her father! He was a friend of +Mary's." + +"Before she married you?" + +"Oh, no, afterwards. She picked him up somewhere when Joan was a baby." + +"_Oho!_" murmured Effie May with an indescribable expression. "I didn't +know Mary was the sort to have friends after she was married!" (It is +just possible that the bride was rather fed up on the virtues of her +predecessor.) But a sudden stiffening of the arms that enfolded her +warned her of rocks ahead, and she finished smoothly, "I thought she was +too interested in you to know that any one else existed." + +"By no means," smiled Richard Darcy, mollified. "On the contrary, she +took an interest in many people whom I found tiresome in the extreme. +Her lame ducks, I called them. Mr. Nikolai was one of those." + +"Why lame?" + +"Well, at the time we first knew him it seems the girl he was engaged to +had just thrown him over because she found out that he was a Jew." + +Effie May gave a little squeal of horror, "A Jew! Well, I don't blame +her for shying at the altar! Of all the men I've known in my day, I +never _did_ go with any Jew!" + +"I confess I have something of the same prejudice myself," admitted the +Major, "Jews and the canile.... But Mary was different, somehow. Not +democratic exactly--she was one of the most fastidious women I have ever +known. But people were simply people to her, particularly if they were +in trouble. She and Nikolai became great friends. And of course since +then he had grown to be quite a distinguished person, Jew or no Jew." + +"I shouldn't have thought you'd have wanted him round the house, +though!" mused Effie May, as though Mr. Nikolai's Judaism might have +been contagious. + +"Oh, well, he was so devoted to the child, and so grateful, and in fact +made himself useful in so many ways," explained Richard Darcy with a +slight blush, "that I had not the heart to object to his presence. +Besides, as he is not robust, and has no progeny of his own, I thought +that in time perhaps Joan--You see?" + +"I see! Of course Jew money is as good as any money, especially when the +Jew's dead." She nodded thoughtfully. "But it puts him out of the +question as a husband for Joan." + +"My darling, he has never been _in_ the question as a husband for Joan! +What an idea! Was it so happy in its own little nest that it wants to +find nesties for all the other little birdies!" cooed the bridegroom, +impatiently drawing her down into his arms again. + +"Um-m-m!" responded the bride, yielding without undue reluctance. + +And so Joan found them as she came remorsefully downstairs some time +later, two mature love-birds perched upon a single twig, as it were, +oblivious of time and the grins of passing servants; and she turned away +hastily to shut out the horrid sight. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +One thing almost reconciled her to the distasteful idea of entering +further into the social world under the wing of her step-mother, and +that was the gratification, the artless delight, taken by her father's +cousins in the idea of assisting at a Galt House Ball, almost in the +capacity of hostesses. There was something piteous to the girl, though +humiliating, about the three little spinsters' unflagging interest in +the amusements of people who had forgotten, if they ever knew of, the +Misses Darcys' existence. Despite their long retirement from what they +called "the polite world," these ladies were inveterate students of the +social column, and constituted in themselves a complete local edition of +"Who's Who." + +Whenever Joan went to see them--which was rather often nowadays, for her +late experience had had the not unusual effect of softening her +comprehension, while it hardened her surfaces--they greeted her with +eager gossip, such as: "I see the little Jones girl is to be married at +last!" or, "The paper doesn't mention your name at the Smiths' cotillion +last night.... Surely you were there?" + +In their eyes she was evidently a most romantic figure, the embodiment +of gaiety and youth and of all they had hoped but somehow failed to be. +They exclaimed with quite personal delight over her frocks, her pretty +underthings, her dainty shoes, the silver-fox furs Stefan Nikolai had +sent her from Siberia. + +"You're going to be one of the belles of the winter!" prophesied Miss +Virginia raptly. "I can tell from the way the paper speaks of you +already! 'Miss Darcy, the fascinating daughter of Major and Mrs. Richard +Throckmorton Darcy, lately returned from the East'--etc. Clothes do help +so much," she added wistfully. "I sometimes think that if dear papa had +been able to manage better dresses for us--" She left her remark +unfinished, a conversational characteristic of all the Darcy ladies. + +"You must remember that dear papa had three of us to provide for, +whereas Cousin Richard has only one," reminded Miss Iphigenia loyally. +"Besides, you were too pretty to need anything but the simplest white +muslins, Virgie. Fine dresses would not have been half as becoming." + +"What nonsense, Genie!" blushed her sister. "I'm sure you didn't need +clothes any more than I did, with all your beautiful hair." + +Joan's evil imagination pictured her Cousin Iphigenia frequenting the +polite world clad, like the Lady Godiva, chiefly in hair, and she +chuckled; but at the same time she kissed both ladies impulsively. + +This was one of the things that brought her to the dingy house so +frequently; the atmosphere of affectionate appreciation that warmed it. +In her father's family--and it was one of the Darcys' undoubted +charms--all geese were swans, and they put not only their own but each +other's best foot foremost with a touching unanimity. The three sisters +regarded each other as paragons, exceeded in degree only by their first +cousin Richard, who, in addition to being a Darcy, was likewise a man, +and by their first-cousin-once-removed Joan, who in addition to being a +Darcy was young. As to their cousin Richard's new wife--the name she had +assumed in marriage banished before birth any qualms they might have +felt as to her inborn qualifications for the polite world. A Darcy could +naturally do no wrong. + +One of the things Joan liked best in Effie May was her consistent +kindness to these rather tiresome and unimportant spinsters. "Buying +them!" she had thought at first. But after all why should any one +trouble to buy them? Hers was not entirely a material kindness, either. +She consulted them faithfully in social matters, even in household +matters (though the Misses Darcy were not notable housekeepers). She and +the Major and the limousine accompanied them occasionally to church, the +only form of social dissipation in which they still indulged. Altogether +she exhibited in dealing with them a tact which in anybody else Joan +would have attributed to good breeding. + +One morning, when the girl stopped in to make her cousins a visit, the +opening door revealed an unusual amount of chatter coming down from the +floor above; soft, pretty chatter (like her father, the Darcy ladies had +charming voices), mingled with the steady hum of a sewing-machine. + +"What's up, Susy?" she asked the languid colored slattern who let her +in. + +"De ladies is gittin' ready fo' de ball, I'specks, Miss Joan, fittin' on +dey new dresses." + +"New dresses? A ball?" repeated the surprised Joan, who did not connect +these activities with her own debut, scheduled to take place a month or +so later. "I must investigate!" and ignoring Susy's best efforts to toll +her into the parlor, she pursued the chatter to its source. + +She avoided that parlor whenever possible, having earlier exhausted its +charms. It was a rather dismal chamber, with shutters always closed +against a too-revealing sunlight. Innumerable small tables and a double +mantel-shelf were crowded with articles of _vertu_ in the shape of +hand-painted vases, and ginger-jars, and marble hands. On the walls, +concealing as much as possible of the original decoration, hung +specimens of all the artistic aspirations of the Darcy family and +friends; "Yards of Pansies," still-life studies of a fan in interesting +juxtaposition to a coal-scuttle, and the like. Concealment seemed to be +the motif of the decoration-scheme. The fireplace was concealed by +moribund cat-tails, the former usefulness of a spinning-wheel was +concealed by gilt paint, the function of the lamp was concealed, if not +permanently impaired, by a ruffled blue silk petticoat reminiscent for +the best of reasons of a certain blue silk party-dress that had once +done yeoman's service in the family. + +The elegance of their parlor enabled Joan's cousins to ask several +dollars more a month for their rooms than did any other house in the +square; but Joan, who, had inherited from the maternal side a strain of +practicality, positively ached in her joints at the thought of the hours +it must take to thoroughly sweep and dust it--if indeed it ever were +thoroughly swept and dusted. + +She poked her head around a door that stood ajar on the third floor: +"May I come in?" + +The three turned startled faces to greet her, two in dressing-sacks +whose fronts bristled with pins, the third in a costume which seemed +vaguely familiar, a dress which glittered with jet sequins and was cut +so low that it was perhaps fortunate Miss Euphemia had neglected to +remove her gray flannel underwear. + +"Why, Joan!" they chorused, dismay mingling with their welcome. (Even in +conversation they were a most united family, speaking usually all three +at once.) "However did you find your way up here? That stupid Susy +should have shown you into the drawing-room!--or at least have announced +you, so that you would not have caught us like this." + +"Nonsense! Susy tried to shoo me into the parlor, but I wouldn't be +shooed; and as for 'announcing' me--she did howl up the stairs. But you +were too engrossed to hear." The naive respect with which they treated +their prosperous young cousin always mortified Joan. She had her own +conception of the family dignity. "You'd suppose I'd never seen a +dressing-sack or a sewing-machine in my life, whereas I was raised on +'em.--My word, Cousin Euphie, how grand you are!" + +"Am I, dear? The dress is grand, I know," said Miss Euphemia doubtfully, +"but I'm not sure it's quite in my style. The others thought I'd better +have it because I'm plumpest, in the--in the chest, you know. But +really, the waist!--There simply isn't any, Joan! What would you +suggest?" + +"A yoke," said the girl gravely. + +"Just what I said!" twittered Miss Iphigenia. "Yokes _are_ being worn, +or I'm certain Joan wouldn't have suggested it. A guimpe of black net +perhaps--tucked, would you say, Joan dear!--and long wrinkled sleeves of +the same. Which would do away with the necessity for long gloves, +girls!" + +This happy thought was greeted with acclaim. "How clever of you, Genie! +We can _all_ have guimpes and long sleeves? You see, three pairs of long +white gloves--" they explained to Joan. + +"Of course!" she said hastily, making a mental note to supply her +cousins with long white gloves if she had to ask her step-mother for the +money. + +They showed her the other dresses eagerly; an amber-colored satin--"With +slippers to match, my dear!"--and one of old-rose brocade which Miss +Virginia almost kissed in her affection for it. + +"I sometimes think if I could have had a dress like this earlier--" she +murmured. "Though of course my real color, like yours, Joan, was blue. A +blue sash, and a pink rose in the hair. As General Fitzhugh Lee once +said to me at a Galt House ball--" + +"No, wasn't it at the Governor's Inauguration, sister?" interposed Miss +Euphemia. + +In the gentle altercation which ensued, Joan never heard just what the +gallant general had said to her cousin Virginia; but she suspected it of +having some connection with blue eyes. + +"You're a lucky girl to be presented at a Galt House ball!" they +exclaimed presently, returning to the subject in hand. "And Cousin Effie +May has really been _too_ sweet about it. Insists, simply insists that +we shall all three of us stand up with her in the receiving line! Says +she'd be terribly shy without us." (Joan smiled faintly at the picture +of Effie May being shy.) "We said to her, 'No, my dear, one of us is +_quite_ enough. We'll draw straws for it, as we always used to.' Dear +papa never let all three of us go to the same party. As he said, 'It's +too much of a good thing!' (Slang, you know.) But she assured us that +she had three evening dresses she couldn't get into,"--it was Miss +Euphemia speaking at the moment, quite unaware of any naivete in the +sequence of her remarks,--"and that it would be a real kindness on our +part to take them off her hands. You know, dear, Cousin Effie May really +is getting a little stout. And she says it's such a problem to know what +to do with outgrown party dresses." + +"It certainly is!" agreed Miss Iphigenia, as if it were one that weighed +upon her heavily. "You simply can't give things of that sort to the +poor." + +"Why not?" murmured Joan, "if the poor would enjoy them?" + +They all rounded on her. "Why, but dear child, it wouldn't be suitable! +It would give the poor ideas beyond their station. Fancy presenting a +spangled net evening-gown to--Susy, say! It would never do!" + +"I suppose not, because she would certainly burst with joy. But think," +mused Joan, "what an enviable death!" + +The Darcy ladies looked at her uncertainly. They were never quite sure +whether their young cousin was jesting or not. They preferred people to +laugh when they joked. It made things clearer. + +"Never mind," the girl added hastily. "Susie's not going to get these +magnificent costumes, anyway!--and I am so glad you are coming to my +ball, dears. We'll be a whole family of debutantes!" + +Afterwards she realized soberly how near her pride had come to depriving +these innocent ladies of a real pleasure. Pride, she reflected, may be +very close kin to selfishness. She postponed her own plans a while +longer. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +These were at their best vague plans. Only one thing was definite about +them. They were to include no more make-believe. Whatever came +hereafter, Joan intended to be herself. The world must accept her on her +own terms; in the phrase of her childhood "like her or lump her!" + +The difficulty was to decide just what that self might be. Hitherto it +had altered obligingly to suit different situations; blowing now hot, +now cold, according to the wind of circumstance. But surely underneath +there was a definite entity, which did not chop and change and adapt +itself, but remained Joan? + +At school she had shown no particular aptitude that would help her +now--or rather had shown an aptitude in so many directions as to give +rise to a widespread impression that "Joan Darcy would get somewhere +some day," but which had caused more than one of her teachers to shake +her head and murmur something about Jack of all trades being master of +none. She herself had found this facility convenient, not in the pursuit +of study but in the avoidance of it. She had managed to slip through the +brief period allotted by Richard Darcy for the necessities of a young +gentlewoman's education, with the minimum of work combined with the +maximum of pleasure. It seemed to her then, and afterwards, the wisest +possible use to make of a superior brain. Possibly the mental diet +offered for her consideration was not altogether suited to Joan's +peculiar requirements. + +Certainly she came away from school with little more knowledge than she +had taken into it, even with regard to herself. Vague yearnings she was +aware of, vague inhibitions and promptings; together with tastes and +distastes that were not vague at all. She put the latter down on a bit +of paper, in an effort to come to a clearer understanding of the girl +who was Joan Darcy. + +She liked: + +1. Books. On any subject whatever, provided they did not try to teach +anything and came up to her rather exacting standards of style. + +2. Dancing--if people kept in step with the music and did not hold her +too close. + +3. Out-of-doors, especially when the wind was blowing. + +4. Music, if there was no one around to discuss it or analyse it. + +5. Children, without their families. + +6. Almost any sort of a dog, particularly if it did not seem to belong +to anybody. Strays regarded her as their own. + +She disliked (and here there were no qualifications. It was never hard +for Joan to say what she disliked!): + +1. Debt. + +2. Effusiveness. + +3. Humility. + +4. Vulgarity--under which heading she included everything her +step-mother did, or said, or thought, or wore, or was. Yet she did not +quite dislike her step-mother. + +This exhaustive survey left her with the impression of a hypercritical, +overconfident, extremely unpleasant young ego, which intended to get as +much out of life as possible with as little given in return, and which +so far had got about what it deserved. She was glad that no one of her +acquaintance was clever enough to see her quite as clearly as she saw +herself. + +Except, of course, Mr. Nikolai: and he did not count. + +There was something odd about Stefan Nikolai's attitude toward his +fellow-men. He seemed to regard humanity as if it were a vast picture +puzzle which it was his privilege to take apart and put together again +for his amusement. He asked nothing of any piece of the puzzle except +that it fit eventually into the spot where it belonged. Joan had a +comfortable feeling that he would presently find her spot for her in +case she failed to find it for herself. But she preferred to find it for +herself, if possible. + +His letter in response to the one in which she informed him of her +impending engagement to Eduard Desmond had confirmed her faith in his +uncanny insight. She did not realize how vividly her untrammeled +descriptions made people and conditions about her known to a student of +human kind. If she always saw things more clearly herself after she had +set them down in black and white, the clarity doubtless extended to +other vision. + +He wrote from Russia, where he had been living for a while among the +mouzhiks in order to understand how mouzhiks live. His curiosity about +such things was insatiable. + +"I also have a wish to see how Tzars live, since it is an order that is +passing," he added casually. "But I fear for one of my race that will be +difficult. Mouzhiks have less reason to fear us Jews than have Tsars." + +Then he went off at one of his usual tangents, and described to Joan +briefly the theory of vaccination. "It is a question of phagocytes, you +understand. Metchnikoff's idea is that when a disease manifests itself a +certain number of phagocytes detach themselves from the blood to fight +it. The stronger the virus injected of that disease, the greater the +number of phagocytes formed; and it is the presence of these detached +phagocytes after the virus has run its course that render the patient +immune from further attack." + +("What," wondered bewildered Joan, "is the man talking about? It sounds +like a medical almanac!") + +But as there was usually some method in Mr. Nikolai's tangents, she read +on. At the end of the last page he enlightened her, and disposed of the +affair with Eduard Desmond in two sentences. + +"By this time you will be recuperating from your first love-attack. +Severe, doubtless, but so much the better. More phagocytes!" + +It was his only reference to her revelations with regard to Eduard +Desmond. Evidently to the scientific mind love in its various +manifestations was merely a form of mal-ease to which humanity is +subject. + +Joan sincerely hoped that enough of the phagocytes had been released by +the innoculation to render her immune from further attack forever. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +Social life, in a small American city that prides itself upon traditions +of social life, may be as absorbing, if not as profitable, as that in +any of the world's great capitals--perhaps more absorbing. For while it +is possible in Paris, Rome, London, New York, to disappear at will out +of the current and no questions asked, such a procedure would be as +impracticable in one of the self-sufficient societies of our South or +East as for a diving duck to remain ad libitum in the bottom of the +duck-pond. He may remain, to be sure, even until he drowns; but his +corpse need not expect a welcome when it returns to the surface, nor +will there be any attempts to resuscitate him. It behooves a +socially-inclined duck to hug the company of his fellows. + +Joan was caught up presently into a whirl of little events which +effectually precluded introspection and even thought. Dance followed +dance; there were teas, luncheons, dinners--above all Bridge, which was +just beginning to oust euchre from a society that must have its +gambling, even if the stakes be merely cut-glass fern dishes. The time +was not yet, in the South at least, when gentlewomen appeared at card +parties purse in hand; but certain hostesses, notably our Effie May, +soon learned to offer prizes that made attention to the game worth +while. Mrs. Darcy's Bridges were invariably successful. + +There began to appear, even among the freshest of the debutantes, an +expression described by Joan to her friend Nikolai as the Bridge +Face--an eager, grim look of do-or-die, which Joan did not find +becoming. (Perhaps this was because she herself never learned to play +the game, except with her hands.) + +A wave of interest in things equestrian followed the Horse Show for a +time, too, and Joan was one of several who rode out two or three days a +week with a riding-master on hired horses, feeling very picturesque and +Kentuckian. She was determined never to be caught napping again as she +had been at Longmeadow. + +Effie May also signified her intention of joining the equestriennes, and +actually appeared on two occasions in a habit which fitted her as its +cover fits a pincushion. But her misery was so apparent, though silent, +that Joan presently advised her to give it up. + +"I guess I never was intended for a horseback rider," she admitted with +a sigh. "No, I'm not exactly scared, dearie--who'd be afraid of old +trained sheep like them? You ought to have seen the trotters Calloway +used to drive! Nothing ever come too fast for Calloway. But somehow it's +different when you're on top of 'em, with nothing to hold on by. And +then those bones in front. It was something fierce!" + +She exhibited to the puzzled Joan certain injuries to her person which +made her efforts at equestrianism seem nothing short of heroic. + +"But why not go without bones in front, as I do?" + +Effie May grinned. "Ever see me without a corset, hon? And you never +will! No woman of my weight should ever be seen in public in her natural +figger, not even in her coffin. Say, Joan, promise me you won't let the +undertaker lay me out without a corset on!" + +Joan promised--of which promise more anon. + +She herself shortly became the riding-master's best pupil, a fact in +which her father took great pride. + +"A matter of inheritance, doubtless," he said modestly. "As you know, +Dollykins, I am a believer in the power of inheritance." + +And though he declined himself to join in the exercise (possibly not +wishing to put too great a strain upon the power of inheritance), his +Christmas present to his daughter was a beautiful little gaited +saddle-mare, especially selected, trained, and--such was his +intimation--bred for her use by a horse-raising cousin in the heart of +the Bluegrass. + +It was a docile, friendly creature, christened by its donor "Pegasus," +in order not to lay too much emphasis on its sex (the Major was rather +nice in such matters). And it soon learned to nuzzle Joan for sugar and +follow her about the yard like a big dog, looking quite injured and +surprised that she did not take it into the house with her. In her +delight and gratitude, Joan almost forgot to wonder whether the +horse-raising cousin had been paid for Pegasus, and by whom. + +The possession of a horse automatically increased her acquaintance with +human nature, introducing her to an element of Louisville society +hitherto unknown to her except at a distance--the negro. Mrs. Darcy +employed, with the exception of a chauffeur and a yard-boy, what she +designated as "white help." She, like Ellen Neal, had an inherent +distrust of a black skin. But wherever there is a good horse may also be +found, drawn by an irresistible affinity, all the male negroes of the +vicinity. + +Joan, advised and assisted by the chauffeur, the yard-boy, and +innumerable colored acquaintances from the alley, soon learned more +about horses and horsemanship than could have been taught her in all the +riding-schools in the world. Pegasus was brought up literally by hand. +The yard-boy proved himself particularly adept, though how he came by so +much knowledge of horse-flesh in his eighteen ragged years of cutting +grass and whitening front steps and washing windows, was a puzzle to +Joan. She asked him once. + +"Huccom I knows how to do wif _hawses_?" he repeated, scratching his +head. "Laws, Miss Joan, _I_ dunno! Huccum I knows how to chaw terbacca, +or to w'istle thoo my teef? Reck'n I was jes' natchelly bo'n dat-away." + +She wondered what, with the gradual disappearance of the horse, would +become of his friend the negro. Perhaps both, like the Indian, were +doomed soon to become a legend in the land.... + +Richard Darcy formed quite a habit of dropping in at the stable himself +to give Joan the benefit of his advice and inexperience; and his +attitude toward their colored visitors was a source of never-failing +interest to her. He treated them with an off-hand casualness quite +impossible to his daughter, to whom they were a race apart, to be pitied +and dealt with gently. The Major dealt with them anything but gently. He +bullied them, swore at them, ordered them around as if they were still +goods and chattels, and apparently they loved him for it. One and all +they sprang to his least suggestion, from the humblest alley-rat of the +neighborhood to the haughtiest chauffeur--and there is nothing haughtier +in the world than a colored man in livery. At the same time, they felt +quite free to confide in him the most intimate details of their private +lives; and they asked without reserve for anything of his that took +their fancy. His cigars, his small change, the very clothes on his back, +were not sacred from their requisition. + +"Please, Major, gimme two-bits?" one of them would suggest tentatively. + +"What do you want two-bits for, you infernal beggar?" + +"To buy me a drink with, please, suh. My th'oat's dusty." + +"A damn good reason for a damn impudent request," Richard Darcy would +grumble, his hand going into his pocket. + +Once Joan heard a dressy youth, who was at the moment rubbing a special +polish onto Pegasus, remark: "Dat's a mighty fine tie you-all's wearin' +dis mawnin', suh. Gimme hit?" + +"Well, of all the infernal cheek!" cried the Major. + +"Gimme hit when hit's done worn out, den?" + +"D'you think I've nothing better to do than watch my clothes for signs +of wear so that I may present them to _you_, you ugly rascal? I will +not!" + +But some days later Joan recognized on the negro's neck the tie in +question, which appeared to have worn out with unprecedented rapidity. + +From signs like this Joan came to the conclusion that there existed +between Richard Darcy and the negroes something of the same affinity as +between the negro and the horse. They were all part together of a day +that has passed. It was another of the records of the old South for +which she was constantly looking; and a far finer, truer relation it +seemed to her than the mistrust and dislike which independence has +latterly fostered between the races. She recalled that her father had +never in his life spoken of his family's servants as "our slaves," but +always as "our people." To him all negroes were still "our people"; a +responsibility and a charge, to be kept in order, bullied perhaps, but +protected, too, because of their great need of protection. And to all +negroes, if to no one else in the world, Richard Darcy was a great man, +one of the masters. + +She tried to express something of this idea once to Archie Blair, who +was always so eager to follow her mental excursions that she sometimes +made the mistake of believing he did follow them. But for once he +disagreed with his oracle utterly. + +"Niggers are the curse of the South," he announced. "Always have been +and always will be." + +She attempted to make him explain this peremptory point of view, but +Archie was not very good at explaining. He was one of the people who +know what they know without knowing why they know it (blood-brothers to +those art-critics who are always aware of what they like when they see +it). Such do not shine in debate. He could only shake his head and +repeat his conviction that niggers were the curse of the South. + +She changed the subject rather impatiently. She would have liked to +retort that well-bred people at least do not call them "niggers." But +somehow Archibald was not fair game. + +She was seeing rather more than she had expected of her protege. In +Louisville there is a certain catholicity in the matter of big +entertainments. That portion of the population which possesses the +inborn or acquired right to call itself "Society" is not large enough to +supply a sufficient number of dancing-men to sustain the true belle's +boast that she never dances more than once around a ballroom with the +same partner. Indeed, in the matter of belles themselves there is a +certain catholicity. Every pretty girl who grows up in the old town with +any pretentious to grammar and respectability and polite behavior has +one chance in her lifetime to foot it with the best. She may, if she so +wishes, enroll herself among the season's debutantes. + +If her family can afford a certain amount of entertaining to support +this pretention, well and good. If not, she must manage as best she can +with the friendly aid of the society column--no small power in the land. +Let the would-be debutante but supply herself with presentable dancing +frocks and slippers, and Louisville will do the rest.--For one season. +During that brief time, however, she must make good her footing by means +of matrimony or otherwise, or back to the chimney-corner for her, like +Cinderella when the cock crew. The town is full of disappointed little +Cinderellas, comforting themselves with good works or a humble +domesticity, dreaming who knows what dreams of the Might-Have-Been. + +They do not all return to the chimney-corner, however. Sometimes they +stay. Sometimes they fare forth joyously into a larger world, and their +names lend luster to greater events than are chronicled in our society +column. One, at least, trails gracefully through ducal halls, and the +strawberry leaves are almost as becoming to her pretty hair as the rose +she wore to her first Galt House ball.--Perhaps Louisville, with a +reputation to sustain, is wise to give her unknown Cinderellas the +benefit of the doubt. + +The male Cinderellas, if they are not welcomed with quite the same +interest, are at least not as soon thrust back into the limbo of things +forgotten. Once their names appear in the list of presentable dancers, +they may arrive year after year at the larger balls, eat, drink and make +merry, select such partners as please them, and retire into their lairs +again until the next entertainment, with no further obligation on their +part than perhaps a perfunctory handshaking with their host and hostess. +Not even that, if modesty forbids. Nor need anything bar the gates to +them except age, conspicuous behavior, or the lack of a long-tailed +coat. + +Archibald Blair presently got used to the surprise of receiving +frequently in his mail engraved invitations from people who did not know +him, and began to look upon them as a special dispensation on the part +of Providence to favor his pursuit of Miss Joan Darcy.--If anything so +entirely self-effacing could be called a pursuit! His wish was merely to +see her whenever possible, to listen to her whenever possible, and if +absolutely necessary to talk to her till somebody more worthy came to +take his place. And having made, a week apart, his two party-calls as +suggested by her inexplicable but obliging step-mother, he would have +been at a loss as to how to manage further encounters if it had not been +for the assistance of these providential invitations. + +Archie also, being quick to take a hint, made prompt party-calls on the +providers of the invitations, a fact which set him apart among dancing +men; so that presently he began to see Joan not only at large balls but +at smaller buffet suppers and the like, even at theater parties, when a +hostess's need was desperate. All of which surprised Joan far more than +it surprised him. He accepted the whole thing as a miracle, part of the +incredible good luck which had begun to happen to him when he landed his +first big order in Philadelphia, and got on to the train for home to +find the One and Only sitting in the chair behind him. + +"Whoops, my dear! I've got 'em locoed," said grateful Archie to himself; +referring presumably to the Fates. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +His luck did not confine itself to social matters. One day the president +of the firm, a Mr. Moore, greatly admired in the office because of his +hauteur with employees, sent for Archie for no apparent reason except to +chat about life in general and business in particular. Now business was +a thing which Archibald enjoyed as some men enjoy golf. Getting about +among all sorts of people, making them like you whether they wanted to +or not, persuading them that the varnish or glue or wax or what-not you +happened to be selling was just a little better than any other on the +market (which Archie certainly believed it was), overcoming the natural +reluctance of human nature to try anything with which it is not +familiar, and finally retiring with a fat little order in his +vest-pocket--all this was as exciting to young Blair as the hazard of +the highway may have been to earlier Knights of the Road. With the +additional advantage of being honest. Archie always preferred, when it +was possible, to be honest. So that he had a good deal to say to Mr. +Moore. + +He liked the president, too--a stiffish old boy whom lately he had met +around quite often at the Horse Show and such places and who seemed to +eye his employee on such occasions with an oddly proprietary interest. +If Archie had ever chanced to read of Benjamin Franklin's discovery that +the way to propitiate the enemy is to ask a favor of him, he might have +understood this personal interest on Mr. Moore's part. But he had quite +forgotten that he had once committed the solecism of asking that +gentleman what to wear to the Horse Show. + +Mr. Moore presently mentioned in the course of conversation that Smith, +the sales manager of the varnish department, was about to leave the +firm. + +"Gee! What for?" said Archie sympathetically. "Is he sick?" It did not +occur to him that any one who had attained so exalted a position would +willingly leave it except for mortal reasons. + +"He goes over to the Lidden people, who've offered him more money." + +"Why, but--He's been with us since he was a boy!" + +This comment pleased Mr. Moore. "Loyalty's as rare in business as +elsewhere, Blair. I'm not sorry to let him go. He hasn't done what I +hoped he would do to put that new polish of ours on the market. Rather +fallen down there." + +"It's a peach, too! One drop and your table-top shines like a reflector +in the sun," murmured Archie perfunctorily, from sheer force of habit. A +premonition had struck him of what was coming next. + +It came. "How would you like to take charge of that end yourself?" + +For a moment Archie was speechless. He, as sales manager!--He, one of +the youngest men in the firm, put over the head of the good old boys who +had taught him the business!--Very red as to the ears, he stammered +something about lack of experience. + +"You've had a good deal of experience, Blair," said Mr. Moore. "You were +a salesman, and a successful one, at the age of--eight, wasn't it? Or +six? And then you've a sort of a knack of getting on with people. That's +as useful in handling men as in handling sales. In fact, Smith says +you're one of the best we've got. Shouldn't be surprised if he tried to +take you over to Lidden's with him." + +"He needn't!" cried Archie hotly. + +"Then you'll take the job?" + +Archie's grin began to grow until it communicated itself to the +president, to the interested stenographer, to the very clock on the wall +behind him. + +"Like a mice!" he murmured cryptically at last; but Mr. Moore appeared +to understand him.... + +It was perhaps fortunate that Ellen Neal was at home when he came +bounding up the stairs that evening, or he might have burst with his +tidings. As it was she thought he had been drinking, and began to +prepare surreptitiously a good strong cup of black coffee. (She had had +some experience with antidotes, had Ellen.) + +"A salary _and_ commissions--do you get me, wench?" he repeated for the +third time. "I'm to run the whole shebang, advertisements and all, and +put what boys I like on the road with it, while I sit back in me office +like a young Pierpont Morgan directing operations! La-la-laihoo!" he +yodled, suddenly seizing Ellen about the waist and one-stepping her +across the room, to the imminent peril of the chandelier below. + +"Mr. Archibald, behave! Me, a respectable spinster woman--" she panted. + +"True! ''tis pity 'tis, 'tis true!' Away with frivolity now! I must +remember the dignity of me office!" he declaimed, releasing her and +striking the attitude of Napoleon crossing the Alps. + +"It means better wages, don't it?" + +"Wages, woman? A salary _and_ commissions! Ha!" + +"And you'll be getting too rich and grand for the attic now, I suppose." +She sighed. "You'll be setting up at some swell boarding-house, maybe, +or perhaps at that club where all the young society fellows live?" +(Since the Darcy debut into society, Ellen was almost as conversant with +its inner life as were the Misses Darcy.) + +Archie's eye glinted. "The club!--why not? I hadn't thought of that." +But then he grinned, "I can see 'em hailing me--'Yere's yer paper, +sir!--yere's yer five o'clock edition! All about de mysterious moider on +de Island!'--No, I guess it won't do. The little old Y. M. C. A.'s club +enough for me. And as for leaving my attic, Mrs. Neal--" he shook his +head. "Why, it's home to me. I reckon I'll be here till the roof falls +in--which it's likely to do at any moment in a favorable breeze." + +"Pooh! You'll be getting married before long, and you won't marry the +sort of wife who'll want to live in a garret, neither!" + +"Why not? + + "A book of verses underneath the roof, + A cup of coffee and an egg in troof, + And Mrs. Neal to cook it up for us-- + Ah, attic life were Paradise enoof!" + +he warbled; and promptly encored himself amid peals of pleasure. It was +his first attempt at composition, and he liked it. (One of the young +ladies at the Library had recently introduced him, as may be suspected, +to the Rubaiyat. Eduard Desmond was not the only young man who found in +the Persian a kindred spirit.) + +"Well, of all the crazy galoots!" muttered Ellen, deciding that coffee +would do no good here. "You'll have to go now, Mr. Archie; I'm expecting +company. Land sakes, six o'clock! and me without my biscuits in the +pan." + +He observed that the table was set for two, quite magnificently, with a +celery glass containing five red carnations in its center. + +"Floral decorations! A genuine entertainment--and I not asked! Who, who +is the lucky fellow?" + +"Go on with your impidence. 'Tain't a fellow. It's--Never you mind who +it is! And you needn't think you're going to be discovered here by +accident-like, either!"--She was pushing him toward the door as she +spoke. + +Light dawned upon Archie. "Mrs. Neal! Not _her_?" He knew that the One +and Only sometimes dropped in to take tea with her old servant, a +goddess descending to mortals; but he had never been lucky enough to +catch her in the act. + +"Yes, it is," replied Ellen, who needed no niceties of grammar to +realize the identity of Archibald's "her." "So now will you hurry?" + +He hurried; but once in the hall he paused in the grip of a daring idea. +Success had rather gone to his head. + +"Say! _Who's going to see her home?_" + +Ellen tossed her head. "Me, of course. You don't suppose I was going to +let the child go off through them dark streets all by herself?" + +"They _are_ dark streets," he said earnestly. "Very dark streets! +Murders happen in them, frequently. Pickpockets; rats!--Really, Mrs. +Neal, two women alone would hardly be safe in them." + +"Perhaps I'd better get me a policeman, then!" She shook her head +grimly, torn between affection for her new charge and devotion to her +old. "Look here, Mr. Archie, there's no use hangin' around like you been +doing lately. Oh, I know! You can't fool me. I was born with eyes all +over me, I was, like that critter in the antiquarium at the Fair--You're +a real nice young fellow, but a girl like Joan Darcy wouldn't so much as +look at you. She's proud, proud as the queen's cat. And her pa's prouder +still. They'd just as lief walk over you to their kerridge (which it's +an automobile) as if you was Sir Thingumbob's coat in the history book." + +"Fortunate coat," murmured Archie, grasping the allusion. "But who's +asking her to look at me, Mrs. Neal? I'd rather she wouldn't, really! +I'd much rather look at her. When you come right down to it, I'm sort of +proud myself!--But if I just happened to be at the front door when you +start out," he wheedled, "you wouldn't really object to my simply--well, +to my merely--" + +"Making a fool of yourself? Go as far's you like!" interrupted Ellen +tartly, closing her door in his face. + +So it chanced that as Joan stood at the threshold sometime later waiting +for Ellen to follow downstairs, making an unconscious picture in her +sweeping hat and her soft furs between the graceful pillars of the +lintel, Mr. Blair appeared nonchalantly before her. And the effect of +the encounter was so great that, intending to lift his hat and toss away +his cigarette with a Chesterfieldian carelessness, he instead tossed his +hat and lifted his cigarette,--a catastrophe that robbed him for the +moment of the powers of speech and motion. He had not expected to follow +out Ellen's program quite so literally. + +Joan's training stood her in good stead. Her lips twitched but remained +in control. The elaborateness of his surprise, together with Ellen's +rather guilty countenance, had already informed her that she was the +victim of a plot, into which she walked obligingly. + +"Well met, Mr. Blair! I wonder whether you have anything very important +to do? If not, _would_ you be good enough to take me home? Ellen really +ought not to go out in the night air with her rheumatism." + +"Dee--lighted," murmured Mr. Blair dazedly, in the language of his +favorite hero. He recovered his hat, and with it some of his former +aplomb. Indeed, as he walked away with his prize, solicitously steering +her by one elbow, he was able to wink back over his shoulder at his +fellow-conspirator. + +It was the first time that he had been really alone with the One and +Only. Hitherto their conversation had taken place against a background +of other conversations, which were somehow helpful. Even when he had +paid his two party calls in rapid succession, there had been others +present; and though the inexplicable step-mother had quite obviously +made opportunities for him to cut her out of the herd, so to speak, his +nerve at the critical moment had always failed him. + +It failed him now. He strolled beside her gloriously, as if on air, but +in utter silence. He racked his brain for suitable conversation to +offer, and for suitable language to offer it in. Somehow her crisp, +cleancut speech (Joan had quite abandoned Southernism) made his own seem +hideous, drawling, uncouth. + +Again Joan came, more or less, to the rescue. + +"Mr. Blair," she suggested gently, "if you don't mind I'd rather not be +helped along quite so much. My elbow, you know!--I sha'n't stumble, I +think. The sidewalks seem quite smooth." + +He withdrew his hand as if it had been stung. + +"Pardon _me_!" he gasped. "I didn't mean-- + +"I know--some girls like to be assisted," she said rather remorsefully +(but after all a protege must be taught!) "You'll find most of us, +however, rather prefer our independence." + +"Votes for Women?" he suggested in all respect. + +Joan dimpled, thinking suddenly of Mrs. Rossiter. "Well, something like +that. Elbows for women, anyway!" she murmured nonsensically. + +Again the conversation languished, being confined on Archie's part +entirely to Yea, yea and Nay, nay. + +Joan was both amused and bored. It had been for some time quite evident +to her that this simple soul was not indifferent to her charms; but +there was something so boyish about his devotion, so grateful and +unobtrusive, that it did not trouble her in the least. Rather the +contrary. It reminded her of "cases" the younger girls at the Convent +got up on older girls, who were in turn expected to act toward their +satellites as guide, philosopher, and friend. Joan had always been very +nice to her satellites. This one should come to no harm through her. +Indeed, she intended that he should come ultimately to much good, for +she really liked him. But this first tongue-tied stage of his admiration +was a little trying to both, and she was relieved when the Darcy house +came into view. + +Not until then, with their parting imminent, did he summon up sufficient +ease to tell her of his recent stroke of fortune. She received it +pleasantly, as a teacher listens to tales of prowess on the part of a +pupil. + +"Sales-manager!--isn't that nice, Mr. Blair? I must get my step-mother +to try some of that polish of yours. She loves things to glisten. And +you'll have a lot more money, won't you? Splendid! So now," she +suggested, as Ellen had suggested, "you'll probably be moving somewhere +else." + +She had her eye on him, though, for it may be remembered that Joan had a +theory of her own as to why this up-and-coming young man continued to +live in an attic in the slums. + +He shook his head. "I'll stay in the old place. Even if I hadn't lived +there ever since I can remember, I think I'd stay anyway." + +"Why?" asked Joan, walking more slowly. + +"Well, there's something sort of homey about it. I've got a fireplace in +my room, you see, and I like the little panes in the windows, and the +big sills--they're just as good as tables--And that funny old twisty +staircase. Sometimes at night when everybody in the house is asleep you +can hear the steps creaking, as if people were coming up and down. I +like that. And the old tree outside taps on the roof as if it were +saying, 'Here I am, kid. Go on to sleep!'"--He broke off apologetically. +"You'll think me a nut, Miss Darcy, talking like this! But you see +everything that's ever happened to me happened in that room, and I feel +as if--well, as if I weren't exactly alone in it." + +Joan nodded, her eyes bright with understanding. She had not expected +him to share her feeling for the old house, or to be so sensitive to the +influence of environment. She walked still slower. It was too bad their +talk should come to an end just as it was showing signs of life. + +"Were you born there?" she asked craftily. + +"Oh, no. No, I don't know just where I was born. On the road, I reckon. +You see my mother was an actress--" + +But despite her lagging feet they were by this time at the Darcy door, +which was promptly opened by an attentive parlor maid. + +"I'm so sorry I can't ask you in," said Joan. + +"No, indeed!--I didn't expect that," answered humble Archie. + +Joan frowned. It may be recalled that humility was one of her dislikes. + +"It's just that I happen to have an engagement for the evening," she +explained; for in Louisville fashion she portioned out her free nights +among certain admirers who are known in the vernacular as "fireside +companions"--gentlemen who for reasons of poverty, or thrift, or +especial devotion, do not offer the ladies of their choice any other +form of entertainment than their company. Only on Sunday afternoons are +the youth of a Southern city free to call unheralded and _en masse_ on +girls with any pretensions to popularity. + +Joan explained this custom to Archibald, remarking with an encouraging +smile, "So you see if you really want to talk to a girl alone, your only +chance is to engage an evening in advance." + +"I see," said Archie. + +And not until the door had closed behind her did he suddenly smite +himself upon the brow, ejaculating, "Dumbhead! Boob! Ivory above the +neck, pure, solid ivory!" + +For it penetrated to him that out of the kindness of her heart his lady +had made for him an opening, an opportunity, which would certainly never +occur again. + +"The fact is," he muttered, turning away from that closed door, "I'm +about as well fitted for society as Balaam's ass!" + +An opinion in which at the moment Miss Darcy would have thoroughly +concurred. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +Relations between them might have ended then and there, for Joan was not +in the habit of casting her pearls before swine, and the confidence was +rather crushed out of Archibald by a realization of his gross stupidity. + +But Effie May was as persistent in her fancies as in other matters. + +"Where's the eary one?" she asked Joan one Sunday afternoon following +the usual influx of visitors. "He hasn't been around since I don't know +when." + +"How should I know? Probably towing some lady-typist by her elbow to a +church social," replied Joan, yawning. + +"You may be sure it's a _lady_ typist, then, and not the other sort," +commented her step-mother. "I like that boy!" + +"You seem to," murmured Joan, reflecting idly that it was a compliment +Mr. Blair did not appear to return; which had been one of the few things +in common between them. + +But later Effie May had something to say on the subject that interested +her more. She said it to her husband in Joan's hearing. + +"You remember that young chap we had at the Horse show one night, whom +Joan met on the train? Name of Blair?" + +"Certainly, my love. An agreeable fellow, though not quite, I should +say, to the manner born? However, he had a respect for his elders quite +unusual nowadays," said the Major affably, recalling his personal +success with the young man. "And a keen sense of humor, as I recall, +very keen!" + +That, as it happened, was one thing Archibald did not possess. He had in +its place a hearty laugh, a passion for "jokes," and a generous +appreciation of jesting intentions on the part of others, which +doubtless served him quite as well. + +"That's the chap. Well, some of the boys who were here this afternoon +were telling me that he's quite a scrapper. Seems some of the young +sports about town have been putting the gloves on with him, down to the +Y. M. C. A.--Johnny Carmichael and that lot--and the other night they +got up a match between him and a regular pug, just to see how good he +was. Seems he stood up to him three rounds, and come out of it with his +nose a pulp and his front teeth gone, askin' for more!" + +"Heavens!" murmured Joan. "Those infantile front teeth?" + +"Oh, I guess they stuck 'em in again," said Effie May, "but I sure would +have liked to see that match! The boys were quite enthusiastic." + +"Did he win?" asked Joan. + +"Win?--against a professional? Lord, child, he was doin' well to stand +up to him one round, let alone three! It was Dan McCabe, Dick." + +"McCabe? You don't say," repeated the Major, highly interested. "Blair +must be pretty good, then!" + +In his younger days Richard Darcy had been something of a devotee of the +gloves himself, and still kept up an interest in ring affairs. Boxing, +he held, was one of the few exercises really becoming a gentleman; and +he had sometimes modestly called the attention of this decadent +golfing-generation to a figure any boy of them might well envy, as a +result of the sport of kings. + +Not latterly, however. Of the Major's more recent figure, the less said +the better. Even the mild exertions of the one-step caused him to +perspire and puff audibly, and he had requested that the cheval mirror +be removed from his dressing-room--a rather serious sign with Richard +Darcy. His wife in vain suggested riding, golf, massage. The Major +preferred the expedient of doing without his mirror. + +She had in mind this growing _embonpoint_ when she spoke of Archibald's +accomplishment--as well as several other matters, being a woman who +thought nothing of killing two and even three birds with one stone. + +"Dickie, I been thinking how nice it would be if you were to put on the +gloves with young Blair sometimes? I've always wanted to see you box." + +"Pooh," he murmured, flattered, however, by the suggestion. "I couldn't +interest him now. And before all those young whipper-snappers at the +gymnasium? I'd be a laughing-stock!" + +"Why not get him to come up here? Fix up a sort of gymnasium in the +attic?" + +"Oh, do!" urged Joan, who had been not a little troubled by the recent +change in her father. "It will be just what you need, Dad, and such fun! +I'm sure you could 'interest' him still." + +The Major's eye kindled a little. He was always responsive to any belief +in himself. "You think so, Dollykins? Well, possibly, possibly--But you +speak as if Blair were to be had for the asking, my love!" + +"Well, I think he is," remarked Effie May with a twinkle at her +step-daughter. "Depends upon who does the asking--What do you say, +Joan?" + +"It would have to be done in words of one syllable," murmured the girl +unkindly, "but I'll try." + +So that again Archibald had occasion to shake hands with Fate; and found +himself regularly every Saturday afternoon at four o'clock beneath the +roof of his One and Only, gently exercising her parent, with every +likelihood of tea to follow. + +Not that Archibald had any liking for tea. On the first occasion of his +accepting it, he had asked for four lumps of sugar in his cup, +explaining that plenty of sweetness took the worst of the taste away. +But he had firmly declined the Major's sympathetic suggestion to +substitute a highball, having his own quaint notions of the proprieties. +One of them was that no gentleman drinks liquor in the presence of a +lady. It was a genuine shock to him to find that Major Darcy did so, +freely: and what he felt when Mrs. Darcy joined her husband in the act, +he was fortunately able to dissemble. It merely confirmed an earlier +impression. + +Joan gave up riding on Saturday afternoons to stay at home and umpire +the boxing matches. She felt that her father ought to be encouraged. +Besides, it rather interested her to see her protege in a new light. +Once stripped to the waist and gloved--(she soon got used to the sight +of her father in a pink silk undershirt and Archibald in no shirt at +all), the young man lost all his awkwardness and shyness and appeared +quite a different person, confident, masterly. + +"Look out, Major! I'm after your nose this time," he would smile. "Guard +yourself. Here's where I get it!" + +"Damned if you do!" the other would cry, feinting desperately, but +without avail. Archie always got it. + +At first the girl gasped with alarm whenever his glove plopped into +smart contact with her father's face or body; but she soon saw that only +the skill of the younger man went into these blows, never his strength. +Richard Darcy saw it too, and was mortified. + +"You're playing off on me, damn your young hide!" he would pant. "You +wait--I'll show you yet, I'll show you yet!" + +And when on one proud occasion he did "show him," to the extent of +bringing an unexpected trickle of blood from Archie's nose, Joan let out +a cheer of triumph--in which the victim joined with a will. + +"Bully!" he cried. "That was a sockdollager! Dare you to do it again, +Major! Doubledare you!" + +Seeing him so, the play of powerful muscles under skin as white as a +girl's, the joyous grin on his big, plain face, the sheer good-nature of +him, intent on giving an older man what he called a "run for his money," +and yet as controlledly gentle with him as a great dog playing with a +child, Joan began to understand why Johnny Carmichael and his friends +were enthusiastic over Archie Blair. He was that rarest of finds, a good +playfellow. + +The companionship of men with men was something she suddenly envied. Why +couldn't women put on gloves and knock some of the pettiness out of each +other, the small spites and vanities and jealousies? She would very much +have enjoyed letting a little blood out of the nose of, say, Emily +Carmichael! In a perfectly friendly spirit, of course.... + +The boxing matches accomplished several results. They were extremely +good for the Major, reducing his waist by several inches and so +increasing his staying-powers that he could eat his way through dinner +from _hors d'oeuvre_ to _creme de menthe_ without losing breath. They +were good for Joan, giving her a new perspective on male human nature, +which since the episode of Eduard Desmond she had been in danger of +regarding rather cynically. And if they weren't altogether good for +Archie Blair--well, Archibald was a young man quite accustomed to taking +care of himself. + +He would have faced greater perils than he did for the privilege of +spending a glorious hour under the same roof with Miss Darcy--whom he +continued to call "Miss Darcy" even in his secret thoughts, though she +had lately formed the delightful habit of addressing him as "Archie." + +She had also presented him kindly with a small photograph of herself on +a post-card, taken for the purpose of showing Stefan Nikolai the furs he +had sent her, and incidentally the ringless condition of her left hand. +(It was her answer to his letter about the phagocytes.) + +Archie did not exhibit this treasure, even to his friend Ellen Neal, +regarding it in the nature of a sacred trust. He had made for it a frame +with a little door which locked, and which greatly intrigued the good +woman for several days; until she found that the back of it came off +quite easily. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +In their weekly chats over her tea-table (from which the Major early +excused himself, possibly under wifely suggestion), Joan got into the +way of being quite confidential with Archibald. She told him one day how +lonely she was for women's companionship. + +"At school I had too many chums, and here I haven't any," she +complained. "I really don't know why!" + +"Maybe they're sort of jealous," was his suggestion. + +"Why, Archie! You're getting positively subtle with your compliments," +she laughed. "No, it can't be that. I'm no 'man's woman!'--I'm done with +that forever! They're welcome to every beau in town for all of me, and I +_never_ flirt with other people's property. I'm really the ideal +companion nowadays--no family complete without me.... Of course I see a +lot of girls around at parties, and they're friendly enough, even make +rather a fuss over me. But--that's all! Somehow we don't seem to be +playing the same game." + +"Ish ga bibble," murmured Archie, consolingly if cryptically. "What do +_you_ care, when you've got 'em all nailed to the mast? But I know just +what you mean, Miss Darcy. Used to feel sort of that way myself when I +went with Miss Gracie or Miss Ella, or any of them from the office. +Before I knew your sort." + +"So you think," said Joan, amused, "it's the sort that's wrong, not me?" + +"Nothing wrong with _you_!" he declared, with a comforting finality. + +Being a person with whom sympathy was always active rather than passive, +however, he took her case earnestly under consideration; with rather +surprising results. + +Some days later--it was one of the still February mornings that come to +Kentucky as an earnest that spring is on the way, with cardinals fluting +from the evergreens and a rusty bluebird or two on the lookout for +summer quarters--Joan was called to the telephone to speak to no less a +personage than Miss Emily Carmichael. + +"I hear you've been riding all winter, Miss Darcy," she said. "I'm so +sorry not to have known it before, so that we might have gone out +together. So much pleasanter than riding with a groom, don't you think!" + +Joan agreed that it would have been. + +"Why shouldn't we make up for lost time at once--this morning, for +instance? Shall I come by for you at eleven o'clock? Very well." + +Joan hung up the telephone, mortified by her own pusillanimous behavior. +Here was a golden opportunity to snub the girl who had found her +"mixed," and instead of doing so she had meekly consented to be +patronized. But at the word her head went up with something of the +Major's dignity. Miss Carmichael would find it rather difficult to +patronize Miss Darcy! + +Miss Carmichael, however, seemed to have no intention of trying. She +exclaimed with delight over the pretty Peggy, sleek as satin despite her +winter coat, and dancing with pleasure to be out once more in equine +society. (With the first approach of winter, the class in equestrianism +had disbanded). + +"Mr. Blair was telling me the other day about your father's wonderful +Christmas present to you," she said. "It must be pleasant to be able to +afford a real saddle-horse! My good old Dobbin has to pull Mother's +station-wagon, too, you know, which is bad for his gaits. It's _horrid_ +to have only one horse in the stables!" + +"You speak as if you were poverty-stricken," smiled Joan, thinking of +the great Carmichael house, with its walled court and double galleries +and outbuildings sufficient to house a retinue of servants. + +"Oh, we are," sighed the other. "Absolutely! Why, do you know, I've +never been to Europe in my life?" + +Joan wondered what this girl would think of real poverty, which yearned +in terms, not of trips to Europe, but of new shoes and unattainable +spring bonnets!--And then she happened to notice, standing at the curb +as they passed, a girl of about her age with a shawl over her head, a +baby on one arm and a child dragging at the other, gazing listlessly at +the fortunate ones who had time to be young. + +Joan hastily abandoned comparisons. + +"If you've only one horse, what does your groom ride?" she asked, having +been rather impressed by the mention of a groom. + +"A bicycle," smiled Emily. "Of course he's not a real groom, only our +houseboy, Joe. It's terribly mortifying to his pride. 'Miss Em'ly, +s'posin' we was to meet some one what knows us?' is his constant plea; +so I ride in out-of-the-way roads to spare his feelings. If we do meet +acquaintances, he drops far behind and pretends he isn't with me. When +old Dob feels his oats, poor Joe has a fearful time keeping up. I hear +him panting and gasping behind me, 'Woa thar, woa thar, Dobbin! Gawd +sakes, Miss Em'ly, don' you know a bicycle wa'n't never _meant_ to +gallop?'" + +Joan was both astonished and amused. She could not fit the picture into +her conception of the Carmichael elegance. "_I_ shouldn't bother with a +groom at all," she murmured. + +"Of course you wouldn't! But you see I've got old-fashioned parents who +can't imagine a young girl being able to go about alone in safety. They +suspect a bandit of lurking behind every bush for the purpose of +carrying off their precious Emily. So far no bandit has had the courage +to attempt it!" she sighed. "Do you know, what I envy you most is your +independence?" + +"My independence? But that's just what I wish I had!" cried Joan, and +presently found herself confiding in this stranger something that she +had hitherto kept to herself--her determination to earn her own living. + +The other girl listened with sympathy, too well-bred to ask questions, +but quick to understand. + +"It doesn't seem fair," she sighed. "We girls haven't a chance at all. +If you were a boy you would have been prepared in some way, of course. +In our family, for instance, my brother Johnny, who isn't half as +intelligent as I am (and that's not bragging, either), was put most +unwillingly through college, and given three extra years at law, and +sent around the world--all to prepare him for a career of horse-racing +and wild oats generally. He's a dear, you know, but he must have his +little wild oats.... And what did I get? Two years of an Eastern +finishing school, where I learned to dress better than we can afford, to +sing and play a little, and to speak French with a fair accent! I wasn't +even prepared for--the thing that's expected of us," she added, +flushing. "I've never cooked a meal nor made a bed in my life, Mother +proceeding on the theory that if you learn how to do such things you'll +have to do them--No fear! No sensible, practical, poor young man would +ever have the courage to ask such a useless thing as me to share his +humble lot!" + +Joan looked at her curiously. She was a tall, rather statuesque type, as +so many Kentucky women are; not beautiful, but with a splendid figure, a +gallant poise of the head, an air of race and elegance that associated +oddly with the idea of cooking and bedmaking. + +"You'll simply have to choose the sort of husband that hasn't a humble +lot," Joan suggested. + +"Choose?" the other shrugged. "Where am I to find him? Not in this part +of the world, evidently. You see I've been out several years, my dear. +And Mother's far too well-bred to take me about husband hunting, even if +she were able to afford it--No, no, I shall simply subside gracefully +into old maidhood, as so many of us do nowadays. Haven't you noticed the +numbers of old maids about here--charming, cultivated women who have +waited too long for a possible partner to come and discover them? +Filling their lives with Bridge and charity and committee work! Useful, +I suppose, and contented enough, but--It isn't what one dreams of! Mere +_pis aller_.... And I don't see how the ballot's going to help, do you?" + +"Except by changing the fashion in female education," mused Joan. +"Meanwhile we've just got to help ourselves. Pull ourselves up by our +own boot-straps." + +"And we haven't even got the boot-straps!" laughed the other, +ruefully.... + +This was not the last of their rides together. The unexpected +understanding of this girl, whose lot in life Joan had long secretly +envied, broke down the artificial barriers between them, and paved the +way for a real and lasting friendship. Between them they settled many +problems of the universe, while Dobbin and Pegasus respectively trotted +and singlefooted about the parks or along a road where the Ohio swept, +swollen with the winter's snows, almost on a level with them, overlooked +by splendid cliffs where the city's rich have been wise enough to build +homes that would do credit to the chateau country of France. + +Sometimes Emily took her into one of these houses for a cup of tea, +occasions which filled Effie May with a candid gratification; for +hitherto the Carmichael circle had remained impregnable to her siege. + +"It certainly was a good idea of yours, getting the child that horse!" +she commented to her husband. "There's something genteel about a +riding-horse--more so than a limousine, though I'm sure I can't see why. +Heaven knows it's cheaper! But even that old plug the Carmichael girl +rides has a kind of air about it." + +"Horses," replied the Major sententiously, "are the only aristocrats +left in the modern world." + +Effie May presently suggested to Archie that he purchase himself a horse +and try riding, since he was so fond of exercise. But Archie put the +tempting idea away from him. What time had he for the diversions of the +idle? Business before pleasure! He had recently, and for reasons that +were a little vague in his own mind, decided to become rich. + +Joan was so preoccupied with her new friendship that she had rather +neglected the boxing matches of late, which presently languished. The +Major missed the stimulating presence of a young feminine audience. So +that Archie spent no more glorious half-hours over a tea-table. + +But he did not complain. It was something to know that he had presented +his lady with the thing her heart most craved. He could, had he so +chosen, have tagged the unconscious Miss Carmichael with a card such as +sometimes came to Joan in modest boxes of flowers, bearing the +inscription: "From a Friend." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +Miss Carmichael presently invited Joan to a meeting of an organization +which she had occasionally referred to as "The Jabberwocks" though it +had been christened by a more imposing name; a group of girls and young +married women who met fortnightly for the apparent purpose of talking +all at once about anything that came into their heads. And as a great +deal came into their heads, the bewildered guest decided that its +present name was aptly chosen. However, though the talk, disconnected +and inconclusive, came out for the most part "at that same door wherein +it went," it was to Joan like hearing a native tongue spoken in a +foreign land. She listened eagerly. Ideas came up for discussion, books, +plays, music, even politics, had a turn; instead of the usual, "Who is +asked to So-and-so's dinner?" and "What are you going to wear at +such-and-such an affair?" which she had begun to consider the chronic +conversation of her sex and age. + +Yet the Jabberwocks were by no means bluestockings (a class of persons +which Joan held in some dread). They frequently were invited to +So-and-so's dinner, and usually managed to appear extremely well-clad at +such-and-such an affair; and the passion they evinced for bon-bons and +weak tea would alone have protected them from the charge of +over-seriousness. + +Joan, after politely maintaining silence till she could bear it no more, +presently burst into a certain discussion with an apt quotation on the +subject from Stefan Nikolai. She was unprepared for the respectful +silence that greeted her remark. + +"You say," murmured somebody, "that Stefan Nikolai told you that? You +know him, then, Miss Darcy?" + +"Oh, yes. Very well indeed." + +"How perfectly wonderful!" sighed the Jabberwocks. + +"You see," explained Emily, "we've been studying him all winter. Oh, if +we'd only known about you earlier!" + +Joan laughed. It had not occurred to her that her friend was a person +people met in solemn conclave to "study." (Why it should be that +personal acquaintance with a celebrity invariably dims his luster to the +affectionate eye is a puzzle which may be left to the psychologists.) + +"Do tell us what he looks like!" demanded the Jabberwocks in unison. "Is +he handsome?" (From which it may be gathered that the club did not +devote itself to things intellectual, exclusively.) + +"Why, yes--yes, I suppose he is," said Joan, pausing to reflect. "He's +distinguished-looking, quite foreign, you know; with very expressive +eyes and a fine, sensitive sort of face. He's not like our men +exactly--and yet he doesn't look Jewish. You know his mother was a +Christian. But his father was born in the Ghetto, somewhere in Russia, +and Stefan actually worked in a sweat-shop when he first came to this +country.--He was the son of a rabbi, though." + +"They always are," murmured Emily _en passant_. "Rabbis always seem to +have such large families. Rabbis and rabbits--did you ever notice?" + +The Jabberwocks sprung upon her tooth and nail. "Don't be coarse!" "Yes, +Em, it's really too bad of you!--you're always spoiling things with your +sarcasm." "Do go on, Miss Darcy!--It's so romantic." + +One little placid-faced girl, stitching on a baby-dress, said quietly, +"We ought to be nicer to Jews than we are, I think, girls. They're +really wonderful!--so clever, you know." + +"Yes," agreed Joan, "they are rather wonderful. There seems to be an +intellectual force about them, a curious inner fire, that nothing can +dampen, not even sweat-shops--I sometimes wish I were a Jew myself." + +They stared at her in utter astonishment. "Wish you were a Jew? Why, +Miss Darcy! Haven't you any prejudice against them at all?" + +"Prejudice--against a race of several billion people?" Joan was +astonished in her turn. A singularly tolerant mother, and later, life in +a little conventual world which had its own standards and viewpoints, +had sheltered her from much of the contagion of current opinion. "That +_would_ be a large order!" she smiled. "No, I can't seem to do my +prejudicing in wholesale lots. But of course I have seen Jews one could +cheerfully do without--the oily sort. And Christians too--haven't you?" +She dismissed the subject with a shrug. "Since you're so interested in +Stefan Nikolai, I wonder if you'd like to hear a letter from him. +There's one in my muff that the postman brought just as I started." + +The Jabberwocks were enchanted. + +"You won't mind if it's quite personal? They sometimes are." + +"So much the better!..." + +It seemed to be distinctly personal, as Joan realized after she had got +well into it. Mr. Nikolai wrote to thank her for the little picture of +the furs and the ringless hand. + + The fox who rendered up his life to furnish forth a tippet + would cry, "O death, where is thy sting?" if he could see + himself now!--By the way, what color have your eyes become? Do + they still match my aquamarine, or must it be gray sapphires + the next time? + +("Dear me," murmured Joan, "perhaps I'd better skip!" + +"Not a word!" breathed the Jabberwocks, sitting forward.) + +She read manfully on, wondering what had come over her friend to make +him so particularly--well, personal was the word. The ringless hand +seemed especially to take his fancy. He referred to it several times, +and Joan could not well explain these references to her audience. She +left them to draw their own conclusions; which they did, with some +exchanging of glances. + +There was an audible breath after she had finished. Emily Carmichael +voiced the Jabberwocks when she asked casually, "Did you say he was +young, Joan?" + +"Oh, dear, no! Quite old. Forty or fifty, or thereabouts. An uncle-ish +sort of person." + +"Goodness," murmured somebody. "Fancy having an uncle like that!..." + +Joan was asked to meetings of the club again. In fact, she was shortly +invited to become a Jabberwock herself, having, without quite realizing +why, been promoted from the rank of mere debutante to that of +Interesting Person. In this way she came into contact with a phase of +Louisville society strange to her father, strange even to the Misses +Darcy, expert as they were in the ways of the best people. She learned +that lately many little groups such as this club had come into +existence, formed of women who had grown tired of more superficial forms +of amusement, and had come together in the vague pursuit of something +better. + +"Do you know, I think we're rather in a transition state nowadays," +explained Emily Carmichael. "It's as if we were waiting for something +real to happen, marking time. The town's growing up, just as people grow +up, and getting tired of childish games--Of course there's always been +plenty of intellectual life here, as there is in most old Southern +places where people have had leisure for books. We've even produced our +share of literature." + +(Joan nodded, recalling her poet at the Country Club, and remembering +several names which are usually associated less with Louisville than +with the world of letters.) + +"But heretofore the intellectual people have been privileged characters, +set apart and labeled, and expected to be a little odd about their +clothes and hair--_you_ know! It's only lately that we ordinary folk +have concerned ourselves with--well, culture, I suppose it is, though +one hates the word! And there is something almost pathetic in the way we +herd together to pursue it, as if to give each other countenance!" + +"Not half as pathetic as trying to pursue it alone," said Joan, who +knew. + +"Anyway, it's distinctly smart nowadays to read and have opinions and +know something, even in our most frivolous circles--thank heaven!" + +"'Business of being a high-brow,' as Archie Blair would say," smiled +Joan. + +"Oh, Archie Blair! Isn't he absurd?" + +Joan suddenly found herself on the defensive. It was all well enough for +her to laugh at her protege, but she did not intend to extend the +privilege to others. + +"I like him very much," she said, with decision. "He's honest and nice. +I believe I like him better than any man I know." + +"So do I," said Emily Carmichael unexpectedly. "But that doesn't keep +him from being funny!--Do you know, Joan, often as we have him to +dinner, and promptly as he pays his party-calls (who taught him that, I +wonder?) he has never once set foot in this house just casually, of his +own accord! I believe he thinks it wouldn't be 'respectful' of him. And +yet I don't seem to awe him particularly, and it certainly isn't +Mother's lorgnon--he positively teases her, and she likes it! The big +house and that sort of thing wouldn't impress him--he's not enough of a +snob. And yet he will not come to see me. Queer, isn't it?" + +Joan admitted the queerness, though she was conscious of a slight +feeling of gratification. She believed she understood, having once heard +Archibald express rather forcibly his opinion of the sort of man who +"went with" more than one girl at a time. While he could hardly be said +to be "going with" herself, he had made little concealment of the fact +that he was entirely at her disposal. She liked him the better for not +being at Emily's as well. + +"So you've been having him to dinner?" she murmured. "He never told me +that!" + +"Oh, no, he wouldn't. Haven't you noticed that for all his artlessness, +he never really does tell much about himself? Or about anything else! +That's one reason he's so popular with Johnny and all of them, I think. +He's a sort of confidential agent to the crowd. I know that when Father +can't find Johnny sometimes" (she blushed, and Joan nodded +sympathetically) "he always calls up Archie Blair, who presently +produces him. Sometimes he doesn't bring him home for several days, and +telephones that he's got him at his rooms--recuperating, I suppose. +Johnny swears by him, of course. I've heard of the wonderful Archie for +years, but never saw him until that night at your ball.... It was +splendid of you to have him there, Joan!--one of the things that made me +want to know you better." + +Joan waived this compliment. One would suppose him Emily's discovery +instead of her own! + +"How did your brother happen to know him?" + +"Oh, boys always know each other--they're so much more democratic than +girls. Horrid little snips we used to be, remember?--turning up our +noses at any other children who didn't go to dancing school?" + +"I did not go to dancing school myself," remarked Joan quietly. "My +mother taught me." + +"Then your mother must have been Queen of the Fairies!" said her friend, +rather prettily. "Johnny and Archie first met, I believe, upon the field +of battle. There used to be a continuous warfare on in this neighborhood +between what were known as the Alley Gang and the Av'noo Kids. We +expected Johnny to be brought in any day a mangled corpse--he being the +leader of the Av'noo Kids. One day the Alley Gang caught him and his +cohorts rather depleted as to numbers, and were naturally engaged in +wiping them off the face of the earth, when the paper-boy came up on his +wheel. With a whoop he dropped wheel and papers and joined in the fray. +The Alley Gang were getting the worst of it when policemen arrived--it +seems some windows had been smashed. The other boys scattered, but the +rescuer dared not desert his papers and so got caught; and Johnny came +panting home to get Father to bail him out of jail. That's the first we +heard of Archie Blair." + +"Odd that he didn't side with the Alley Gang, wasn't it?" commented +Joan. + +"Why, don't you see?--the Av'noo Kids were getting the worst of it. +That's Archie!..." + +Joan decided to be a little kinder to her protege the next time she saw +him. It is an odd fact that we frequently do not appreciate our +possessions until others appear to value them unduly. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +Their next meeting occurred at the Carmichael house at dinner. Emily, +with the approach of the Easter season, had one day announced her +intention of giving a dinner in Joan's honor, greatly to the younger +girl's pleasure. It meant that she had won not only the friendship of +Emily, but that of her mother as well; a rather more difficult feat. + +Major Darcy was equally pleased with this compliment, which he +characteristically accepted for himself. + +"It is very gratifying to have old friends take one's child to their +hearts in this fashion--very gratifying! There are no better people in +the State than the Carmichaels, my dear. It is true that I have seen +less of the Judge than I could have wished since my return--we were +school-boys together. But I felt that soon or late there was bound to be +some recognition. A fine fellow, and a most able lawyer! Yes, yes. And +his wife--charming, charming! Though a trifle stiff for my fancy. A +_little_ more suavity of manner. She was a Dillingham, you know. Her +father represented us at one time at the Court of St. James." + +"Oh! Is that why she's so airy?" commented Effie May. "Well, I don't +mind airs if people have got a right to 'em, and nobody needs call on me +who don't want to. I'm real glad you're getting in with that crowd, +Joan. They're better than most 'old families'--they're still alive and +kicking and right at the top. And you've done it all by yourself, too! +Parties don't seem to do no good with their kind.... That's what comes +of being born a lady yourself." + +Something both wistful and generous in this speech touched the girl. + +"I had forgotten Mrs. Carmichael has not called on you, Effie May," she +said quickly. "Of course that makes it impossible for me to accept their +invitation. I'll tell Emily." + +And neither the Major's hasty reassurances or her step-mother's +remonstrances sufficed to alter her decision. She declined Emily's +invitation, and told her why. + +"You're quite right, and Mother'd be the first person to tell you so," +said Emily in instant approval. "I'll see what I can do. You know--" she +hesitated--"it isn't that there's any _reason_ for her not to call. Of +course everybody knows who your father is, and he's perfectly +delightful, too! It's just--" + +"I understand," said Joan quietly. + +Emily put an arm around her. "My dear, I hope you do--This is such a +small puddle that the big frogs in it take themselves rather seriously. +And it's changing lately. It used to be that in the South money or the +lack of it meant almost nothing at all. Now it means a great deal--more, +I fancy, than in places where there's more of it. It doesn't seem to +take even one generation to make a gentleman nowadays--or what passes +for a gentleman. And so the old guard feel that they have to be +especially wary, to make a decided stand, in order to retain their own +identity. They're horribly afraid of being--not exterminated exactly, +but--" + +"Mixed?" suggested Joan. "I remember you called me 'mixed' the first +time you deigned to notice me." + +"Not the first time--the second," laughed Emily, blushing. "The first +time was on the train, and you had flowers and a box of candy, and I +hadn't.--The second time you were such a haughty little minx, with your +Eastern airs and your lovely clothes, and so utterly unaware of my +provincial existence, that I simply _had_ to snub you somehow!" + +"Well!" gasped Joan. "That is exactly the way I felt about you!" + +"And there we were bristling our hackles at each other like two strange +puppy dogs, each waiting for the other to wag a tail. Anyway, I wagged +first!" cried Emily, kissing her friend. "And I'm not going to lose you +now, simply because my family hasn't been polite to your family." + +"You couldn't!" said Joan rather shyly, kissing her in return.... + +As a result of this understanding, some days later the cards of both +Judge and Mrs. Jonathan Carmichael appeared on the Darcy hall table +(from which they were not removed until gray with age and exposure); to +be followed by an even more unequivocal bit of pasteboard which informed +Mrs. and Miss Darcy that Mrs. Carmichael would be at home on a certain +afternoon in April from four until six. + +Effie May's innocent joy in this trophy, and the frequency with which it +figured in subsequent conversations, filled Joan with a combination of +embarrassment and satisfaction. She felt that she had at last done +something to repay, in part, the obligation she owed to her father's +wife.... + +She was not surprised to find Archibald at Emily's dinner. It was the +first time she had seen him under quite such a strong social light, +however, and she was a little nervous as to what the evening might bring +forth. "The Sign of the Dirty Spoon," did not sound like the most +reliable school of table manners. + +He sat opposite her, between Emily and a debutante of the type that +makes conversation an act of supererogation, and she was able without +seeming to do so to keep her protege under a watchful eye. + +But to her relief he neither swallowed his spoon nor grasped his fork +with undue firmness, and seemed not at all perturbed by the variety of +the silver implements beside his plate. Joan was quite mystified by his +prowess; until she happened to notice that Emily also had him under a +watchful eye. With each course Emily promptly and ostentatiously +selected the proper implement, and Archie, after one glance out of the +corner of an eye, followed suit. It was perhaps fortunate that Emily was +his leader instead of the more impish Joan, who would have been impelled +by sheer force of circumstance to attempt her fish with her coffee +spoon. + +What surprised her even more than Archibald's table manners was his +conversation; a flow, a positive torrent, which poured on in a constant +stream, pausing only for the extreme exigencies of mastication, and not +always then. In the intervals of her own talk, Joan caught occasional +bits of this monologue. During the soup course it apparently concerned +itself with the South American armadillo, habits and habitat. During the +dessert it still appeared to linger about the armadillo. + +Now and then Emily cast a puzzled glance across at Joan, and the +debutante on his other side had long since been reduced to "Oh, really?" +and "I can hardly believe that!" But the armadillo went on and on. + +Joan had not suspected him of a concealed passion for natural history. +She could hardly wait for dinner to be over to investigate this new +development. But she had to call him to her side in so many words before +he ventured to join her. His eyes had been upon her most of the evening, +removing themselves hastily whenever they caught hers; but he did not +wish to intrude. It was quite sufficient for him to be in the same room +with her. + +She began at once, "Why and whence the armadillo, Archie? You sounded +like a University Extension lecture!" + +"Did I?" he grinned. "Was it all right? There were some things I forgot +to tell 'em. About the--" + +"Never mind!" said Joan hastily. "What I want to know is how you came by +the armadillo, anyway?" + +"I'm taking a correspondence course," he confessed. + +"In--in armadillos?" + +"No, in conversation," he said seriously. "Subjects of General +Discussion Suitable for Social Gatherings. I thought, seeing as I'm +going out in society so much these days, I ought to work up a different +line of talk than a fellow needs in business. The sort of things _you_ +like, you know--not learned, exactly, but sort of high-brow.--Books and +all.--They send us out a subject once a week. 'All about the North Pole' +it was once. 'The Infant in Portraiture,' another time. Last week it was +'The Armadillo and Its Ways.' Great scheme, ain't it?" + +"Stupendous!" murmured Joan. "But, Archie, suppose you meet a +fellow-student at some--er, social gathering who happens to be pursuing +the same line of cultivation? Mightn't that be rather embarrassing?" + +"Give me away, you mean? What's the dif? I would give him away, too, and +we'd have something to talk about! Anyway, to know all about something's +a mighty fine idea, even if you don't get a chance to tell folks." + +Joan did not smile. She realized that here, manifesting itself no matter +how uncouthly, was the true spirit of research, a thing which she +respected above all other impulses of the human brain. + +She said softly, "Keep on with your correspondence course by all +means!--only, Archie, don't talk about it to other people, will you? +They might not understand." + +He gave her a quick little grin of comprehension. "Not on your life! It +don't pay to wise people up to what a boob you are.--Except you. I guess +you know, anyway!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +Joan, in yielding to family pressure temporarily, had by no means given +up the idea of what she had learned recently to call her economic +independence--a subject discussed frequently, if not very fruitfully, by +her friends the Jabberwocks, who preached rather more radically than +they practiced. + +"You see," as they explained when reproached by Joan with inconsistency, +"we believe in that sort of thing, of course! but it isn't as if we +really _needed_ it." (Which was likewise the Jabberwockian attitude +toward suffrage.) + +Joan, however, not only believed in economic independence, but needed +it--as she reminded herself at gradually increasing intervals. She was +in danger, and knew it, of going over to Mammon. She had found it far +easier than she expected to live along from moment to moment, accepting +life as it came, enjoying the surface without questioning the depths. +The habit of mere material luxury is an insidious thing that fastens +upon one unaware; and Joan had all her father's taste for the good +things of life. + +She had begun to form many little extravagant ways, such, for instance, +as wearing silk stockings under her heaviest shoes, using a towel only +once before casting it aside, having her hair shampooed down town when +she was perfectly able to do it herself in her own bathroom. Not very +reckless extravagances, perhaps, from the point of view of her new +friends; but the sort of thing which the Misses Darcy observed with +something like awe. + +"I often think that if dear papa had been able to allow _us_ to be less +careful--"; sighed Miss Virginia. "But of course in our day a silk +stocking was a silk stocking." + +"Indeed it was! Do you remember the lovely pair Aunt Sara Miggs brought +from abroad when she made the grand tour? White they were, Joan; and +when they began to get a little yellow with washing, she gave them to +me; and when I'd had plenty of use out of them, they were dipped pink +for Sister Euphie; and by the time Sister Virgie got them they had +become black." + +"With age?" asked Joan, rather startled. + +"Oh, no, dear. With dye." + +"Where are the stockings of yester-year?" murmured the girl. "You can't +buy good old family standbys like that nowadays, not at any price. +Nothing but these miserable sleazy affairs that run if you look at +them--the cowards!" + +The Darcy ladies exchanged puzzled glances. + +"Cowards--stockings?" repeated Miss Iphigenia. "I'm afraid I don't quite +see the connection--" + +"There isn't any--don't mind me! And really it's quite a distinction to +wear cotton ones nowadays," hurriedly said Joan, who hoped sincerely +never to possess a cotton stocking again in all her life. And at the +same time planned to earn her own living in any honest fashion +available, no matter how lowly! Inconsistency was not a fault with which +she had the right to twit her fellow Jabberwocks.... + +But she never quite forgot her destination in the pleasures of the +wayside. She did a good deal of quiet investigating, in a desultory way. +Teachers, librarians, bookkeepers, stenographers, all came under the +head of skilled labor, as she soon discovered, and required a course of +training--which Joan's step-mother would have to provide. It put these +professions out of the question. + +There were various small establishments in Louisville conducted by +acquaintances of hers, those "ladies in reduced circumstances" of which +every Southern town is full; tea-rooms, hat-shops, lingerie-shops, and +the like--a state of affairs which gave Major Darcy acute distress. + +"Imagine the daughters of my old friend Colonel Dinwiddie selling +bibelots to any vulgarian who has the effrontery to purchase them! What +can their brothers be thinking of?" he would groan. "Of course you will +be careful never to enter the shop, my dears! The poor ladies shall not +be embarrassed by having to wait on _my_ wife and daughter, at least." + +But aside from her father's peculiar but not unique point of view, these +ventures required capital; which again put them out of the question. + +She heard now and then of certain well-paid positions in connection with +social service of various sorts; but these again seemed to require a +special training, or a special aptitude, which Joan did not believe +herself to possess. The very words "social service" had to her a +chilling, impersonal, busybodyish sound, almost as ugly as +"philanthropy." She was not of those to whom a rose by any other name +would smell as sweet. "Charity" sounded to her Christian, and warm, and +friendly; but she dreaded to offer "philanthropy," or "social service" +to the unfortunate almost as much as she would have dreaded to receive +such things. She decided that her _metier_ was not good works. + +Clerks in stores, she learned, do not for the most part earn a living +wage. They are expected evidently to live at home, or to supplement +their salary in some other fashion (just how Joan was not sure, but she +entertained uneasy suspicions). By the time they become expert--heads of +departments, buyers, chief milliners, etc.,--they are of course more +than economically independent. But in the meanwhile.... + +It was the meanwhile that troubled Joan. When she broke with her family, +she intended to do so with a magnificent completeness. + +Only two alternatives seemed open to her inexperience; the stage and +journalism. She weighed them one against the other without being able to +come to a decision. Joan was rather fond of making her own decisions, +and had all the impatience of her nineteen years with mature advice. But +at length she consulted Stefan Nikolai. + +"Please write me by return mail," (she commanded), "which you think +would offer me the most advantageous career, the stage or journalism." + +He obeyed on a post-card marked Christiania (his postmarks were +frequently the only indication of his whereabouts): + +"I should suggest the usual course in matrimony as a preliminary to any +career." + +Joan stamped her foot over this banality. It was something she might +have expected from a man of her father's generation, but hardly from +Stefan Nikolai. Particularly when he knew about Eduard, and must +certainly realize that her interest in man as a sex was over! + +Useful she still found them as dancing partners, to be sure, as +providers of candy and flowers and theaters, even to a certain extent as +companions, since one cannot very well sit about after nightfall +conversing with women, if only for appearance' sake. One or two she +might admit to her friendship, provided they remain sufficiently "in +their place," like Archie Blair. But as lovers, husbands! Never again. +Fortunately, sufficient phagocytes had been released to take care of +that. + +Hers was an attitude of mind which if generally entertained would, she +realized, mitigate against the welfare of the race; but judging from the +people about her, it would never be generally entertained--particularly +in Kentucky, and in Springtime. + +It is a season when matters of pairing off that may have hung fire +throughout the winter are apt to come rapidly to a climax. Each Sunday +paper brings forth its batch of Spring engagements; and Joan herself was +under the pleasing necessity of chilling off two of her admirers in +quick succession. One was a youth of the fireside-companion type, who +innocently fancied that there might be room for one more under the +hospitable Darcy roof. The other was the blond young man who had been +Joan's first partner, and who, having danced her successfully through +the season, saw no reason why he should not dance her successfully +through life. + +They met with small mercy at her hands. "Off with his head!" murmured +Joan cheerily to herself on each occasion, thinking of a certain evening +under a beech-tree by the light of the gibbous moon.... + +These two unfortunates were not the only ones in her life who were to +suffer vicarious atonement for the sins of Eduard Desmond (and obscurely +of Richard Darcy as well). + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +It was in April that Archie Blair conceived the happy idea of purchasing +an automobile, thus combining business with pleasure most practically; a +modest secondhand affair of three good cylinders and one that missed, +but it shone (Archibald being in the paint and varnish business) with a +glossiness that advertised its owner afar off. And like the bicycle in +the song, it was "built for two." + +Archibald had no wish to intrude; still, an automobile is an automobile, +and it seemed to him that on a fine Spring evening almost any young lady +might like to ride in one, even if accustomed to limousines. + +Joan first became aware of this acquisition one fine day when it +appeared and reappeared and once again appeared passing the window where +she sat reading. Three times, like Hector about the walls of Troy, it +circled the block, smelling of its new paint and complaining loudly of +its missing cylinder; and at last Joan, puzzled by this persistence, +thought to glance at its driver. Clutching the wheel in a death grapple, +taking his eye from the traffic only long enough for a hopeful glance at +the house front as he passed, she recognized her friend in all the proud +modesty of ownership. + +Joan promptly put on a small hat and a large veil, and went out to take +a walk. + +"Miss Darcy! Say, Miss Darcy!" (Honk-honk--or rather Ooo-ooga-ooga!) +"Look who's here! Mine! Bought it myself!--I was just hoping I'd run +across you somewhere." + +"I trust you won't," murmured the lady. + +"Ha! Ha! Ha!" roared Archie, recognizing a jest. "Look out, or maybe I +will yet! Perhaps the safest place is inside," he suggested craftily, +and with some truth. Joan accepted the hint. + +"Learnt in three lessons!" proclaimed Archie, unable to resist the +temptation to brag a little. (An automobile of his own, all paid for, +and the One and Only beside him on its seat--who can blame the man?) +"Only got it last week, and if there's a part of little old Lizzie I +don't know about, it's because it isn't there, that's all! Of course I +can't take my eye off the road yet--" (this as a family party narrowly +escaped annihilation)--"but you won't mind my talking sort of over my +shoulder?" + +"I won't mind your talking any way at all--so long as it's not about +armadillos." + +Archie grinned. "Now you're joshing me!" + +"I never was more serious in my life. What's the subject this week?" + +But he declined to be drawn. "All that's just for social gatherings. +People don't have really to converse out-of-doors, do they?--Say, what +if we go out in the real country somewhere!--not parks, where there's +always so many things around, but a good straight empty road, where I +can step on her tail and let her rip--eh?" + +The idea seemed good to Joan. It was the sort of day when cities are an +abomination, and the soul of the veriest urbanite yearns to follow a +gipsy pateran. + +Once out of the complications of traffic, Archibald lost his caution, +and stepped on her tail and let her rip. The song of the birds, the +neigh of startled colts in the fields as they passed, the rush of the +golden air itself, all were lost in the roar of the willing little +engine. + +"Thirty-five, thirty-eight, forty-two--" chanted Archie with a proud eye +on the speedometer. "Go to it, Lizzie! Good old girl!" + +Joan had no fear. Somehow the car seemed safe in his big, powerful +hands--as safe as she was herself. Off came her hat, and the wind did +its pleasure with her hair. Rushing along so close to the ground, dust +in their faces, trees and meadows passing in long green streaks, she got +quite a different sense of motion from any she had known before. It was +a more personal thing, more of an individual effort, as if she and her +companion were really flying like birds, with the little car for wings. + +"Oh, don't stop! It's glorious!" she cried as he suddenly slowed down. + +He explained, quietly, that her hair was blowing in his eyes. + +"What a nuisance!" She tucked the offending strand into place. + +"I--didn't mind," said Archibald, in a rather queer voice. + +Joan, with a glance at his face, decided that they would have to be +turning back. But as she bade him good-by she said suddenly, "Teach me +how to run Lizzie myself some day, will you, Archie?" + +"You mean you'll go out with me again?" he demanded, radiant. + +"Of course," promised Joan, reckless with speed and the Spring air. +"Whenever you like!" + +Archibald tooled his Lizzie back to her shed with the air of Phoebus +driving the chariot of the sun. He warbled aloud, he wore his hat on one +ear, he presented a small darky, who helped him to groom and tend +Lizzie, with a silver dollar. + +But that night as he lay in bed, with an April rain making music on the +roof above him, he told himself soberly that he must be careful. There +had been moments to-day, especially with her hair blowing across his +face, when a fellow almost forgot!... He conjured himself by all his +gods to be a wise little ostrich and keep his head well tucked into the +sand. + +And Joan, listening to the same soft rain, so full of suggestion and +race memories and the call of the year, also reminded herself that she +would have to be careful. She thought of his humble, adoring, happy +eyes, and her heart smote her. This one was not quite as other men. To +hurt an Archibald was a trifle beneath one's dignity. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +The career of Lizzie (whose surname may perhaps be guessed by the +intelligent reader) was short, and her end untimely; but even so she +served her part in the inscrutable purposes of Fate. + +It came about in this wise. + +Archibald had formed quite a habit of calling for his lady, not only on +fine afternoons after five, but sometimes in the balmy spring nights +after dinner, when all the world meandered two by two, occupying the +benches in the little park opposite Joan's house, and filling the roads +with a streaming procession of motors and traps and buggies, of anything +that went on wheels; even perambulators. + +Joan rather enjoyed being part and parcel of this murmuring, meandering +community. She liked to feel in touch with the people about her, like +any Miss Gracie or Miss Ella with a beau--particularly when it cost no +effort. She had but to lend her company, and Archibald would do the +rest. He asked no more from her than her presence. + +Each time he came for her, Lizzie had acquired some new elegance; +dust-covers, a side-mirror, a voice that sounded like a Packard's, at +least. Not a car on the road exhibited brighter brasswork than hers. If +the chariot was not altogether worthy of the lady, it was through no +fault of Archie's. Lizzie, like her owner, strove to please. + +Sometimes, if they started in the afternoon, Effie May would insist upon +providing one of the little picnic lunches that were her +specialty.--"So's you won't have to come home till you get good and +ready," she explained, twinkling at Archie. It was perhaps a little +ungrateful of him not to meet her overtures half way, since it was +evident that she suspected his secret and was deliberately aiding and +abetting him. + +But Archie cared nothing for her aidings and abettings. Hope did not +enter into his calculations at all. He entertained no false illusions. +All he asked was to be allowed as much as possible of Joan's company, +for as long as she was willing to grant it. + +His present streak of luck could not last, he knew. Some fellow would +come along soon with a larger, finer car, or perhaps with a +saddle-horse, or a coach and four--at any rate with something more +suitable than he, Archie, had to offer. But meanwhile there was now; and +if she was never allowed to suspect the inner state of his feelings, the +glorious now might be prolonged indefinitely. Archibald was nothing if +not an opportunist. + +So he was very careful. And Joan was very careful. No more hair blew +into eyes. They remained matter-of-fact and chummy and impersonal, even +when they picknicked together under a twilight sky, one on either side +of a spread napkin, as if they had set up housekeeping together in the +wilderness--a situation which, as people know who are far less wise than +Effie May, is usually provocative of results. Nothing occurred, however: +until the day that marked the passing of Lizzie. + +They were on their way home in the gray of a late evening, Archibald +driving, with half an eye on the whiteness of certain hands as they +deftly stowed away the remains of tea in the picnic-box. Which may have +been the reason that when he came to a railroad crossing, he was less +careful than usual. + +It was a switching track on which a freight train stood, heavily +panting. Lizzie safely negotiated this, and was going on to a second +track beyond, when something jerked Archie's eyes around in time to gaze +full into the headlight of an approaching passenger train. He had not +enough speed on to cross the track ahead of it. He had too much to stop +where he was. + +"Gee!" he grunted; and with a powerful wrench of the wheel, turned into +the track just ahead of the rushing engine. + +Joan meant to scream, but forgot in sheer excitement. Behind sounded a +frantic grinding of brakes, a hiss of steam, and the locomotive let out +shriek after shriek. + +"Oh, I hear you!" muttered Archie. "I'll get out of your way the minute +I can, old top! None too soon to suit yours truly." + +He stared into his side-mirror. Down the ties pounded willing Lizzie at +thirty, forty, fifty--with a pop a tire blew out. + +"Get that door open," he shouted at Joan, above the hissing steam. +"Don't jump till I say the word. Trying to make a flat place. You hear?" + +Joan nodded. There were deep gullies on either side. She glanced over +her shoulder. The engine seemed almost on top of them--But Archie kept +his eye on his mirror. + +"Can't make it," he said suddenly. "All ready? Now! Jump!" + +To the after mortification of her entire life, Joan could not move. She +understood the necessity, her head was quite clear and calm, but her +limbs refused her bidding. + +The next instant he had seized her, tossed her out like a bundle, she +was falling--falling.... + +There came a crash, the splintering of glass and iron. + + * * * * * + +Long after she was able to, Joan dared not open her eyes. She fought +back the coming of consciousness, tried not to think. + +She was on a moving something--a wagon perhaps, or a train. There was +murmuring of voices near her. She strained her ears. The voices were +strange. + +She wanted to pray, but could not remember God's name. + +She was lying on some sort of lounge--a leather lounge. She lifted her +lids very, very slowly. She was in the smoking-compartment of a +train--alone! Where was he? She tried wildly to sit up--to call out-- + +And then something moved beside her on the edge of the couch. It was a +head, a bowed, curly head which she recognized and which belonged to a +figure that knelt beside her in an attitude of utter despair. + +"Oh, Archie, Archie!" she whimpered. "Then you _aren't_ killed!" + +The head jerked up. The next instant she was in his arms, her face +against his. She was being kissed and kissed again--eyes, lips, cheeks, +hair--whatever he could reach. She could not stop him. She did not try +to stop him. Indeed there was something consoling, comforting in those +frantic kisses, all wet with tears, and fiercely tender with the passion +of one who has brought his treasure single-handed out of the jaws of +death. + +"My God! My God! My God!" said Archibald; and nothing else. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +Two days later he came to see her, with a good deal of court-plaster +about his face, and limping on a sprained ankle; and found Joan in bed +with a wrenched shoulder, otherwise unhurt. Effie May convoyed him +amiably upstairs and left him there, to his intense perturbation. He +stood sheepishly beside the door, hardly daring to look at the pale, +laughing face among the pillows--that face with which he had taken such +amazing liberties. + +Joan in a _peignoir_, with her hair in a great braid on either shoulder, +looked more like the little girl he had first seen weeping alone on the +train, than the composed young lady of ballrooms and horse shows. Yet +his awe of her was not lessened. On the contrary. Once before, when she +lay thus helpless before him, he had forgotten himself. Suppose his +emotions were to form the habit of running away with him? He clenched +his hands hard. + +This timidity on his part did much to restore her own shattered +composure. She had been rather dreading this interview to which she had +steeled herself. Better to get it over and done with, however, since the +thing was inevitable. She could not quite ignore what had passed. + +"You might come closer," she suggested. "I really don't feel strong +enough to-day to converse with you through a megaphone." + +He seated himself gingerly on the edge of the chair she indicated, +looking everywhere but at Joan. + +"Oh, Archie!" she cried, suddenly tremulous, "wasn't it _terrible_?" + +He started. "Terrible" was not the word in his mind. "Outrageous," +perhaps--but by no means terrible! "W-what?" he said. + +"Why, the accident! Poor, poor Lizzie! Was there anything left of her at +all?" + +He found his voice. "Oh, Lizzie? Well, not much except her license tag." + +"Her poor precious little license tag!... Well, that will be useful +anyway, for the new machine." + +He shook his head. "I guess there isn't going to be any new machine." + +"Oh!" she flushed with quick sympathy. "You mean you--you can't afford +another?" + +"Why, I guess the railroad company'd help to buy me another if I wanted +it--the engineer didn't signal for that crossing. But--I don't. You +see," he murmured, looking down, "there were--well, there were sort of +associations with Lizzie." + +Joan understood. Her flush deepened. "I suppose you feel about her as I +do about Peggy," she said quickly. "My first horse! If anything were to +happen to her, I'd never feel the same about another.--I'm sorry, +Archie! We've had great fun out of the little car." + +He shook his big shoulders as if trying to rid them of some burden. "Oh, +what does the machine matter?" he said roughly. "What gets my goat is +what you must be thinking of me, what your father must be thinking! Of +all the dod-blasted he-idiots! Not to be able to take better care of a +woman than that!" + +"I think, and so does my father, that you took wonderfully good care of +me! If it hadn't been for your nerve, your quickness.... Ugh!" she +shuddered. "Dad says that not one man out of a thousand would have seen +what to do in time to do it. In fact, he's waiting in the library to +make you a speech before you go. Eloquence-with-gestures. Do you know, I +never realized before that in some ways man is really woman's superior? +You've got yourselves better in hand, your muscles do what you tell them +to. It was a good lesson for me." She smiled up at him. His miserable +eyes touched her, and she held out her hand. "Why, Archie! what makes +you look so ashamed?" + +He ignored that friendly hand. "I'm thinking that if your father knew +_all_ I'd done," he muttered, "he'd do something more to me than make a +speech. Eloquence-with-gestures, all right! Gestures of the foot." + +Joan decided to take the bull by the horns. "You mean when I came to, +and you--kissed me? Why did you do that?" she asked, gravely. ("There! +Now the tooth is out," she thought.) + +"Because I was a damn fool," he groaned. + +Joan's lips twitched despite herself. "Really, you're not very +complimentary!" + +But Archibald was beyond considerations of mere politeness. "Because I +hadn't the decent horse-gumption to keep my feelings to myself! Had to +go spilling 'em all over the place, insulting you with 'em!" + +There was a pause. "You care for me, then?" prompted Joan. + +Archie grinned, miserably. "Well, what do you think?" + +"I'm afraid you do." + +"You're dead right," he said. + +Another silence followed this admission, and then he rose to go. "I +guess that'll be about all from me!--Only I want you to know, Miss +Darcy, I--I never meant to do such a thing--I never knew I had it in me! +Good Lord! When I saw you all crumpled up there in that gully, not +moving at all, even when the train-gang came to pick you up--When I knew +that I had done it, I--! And then you opened your eyes and looked at +me.... Oh, hell, what's the use?" + +He turned blindly toward the door. + +She had to catch at his coat-tails to stop him. "Archie! Wait a +minute.--I'm going to make you a speech myself. In the first place, +Archibald Blair, your sort of 'feelings' wouldn't insult anybody. They +couldn't! I'm proud to have you care for me, and I'd be glad, too, if +only I could--But it's not as if you were asking anything in return, is +it?" + +"Me?--_asking_? Good Lord, I'm not such a mutt as that!" + +"Some day you will be 'asking,' Archie dear--a worthier girl than I am, +I know--and she won't think you a mutt at all!" + +He shook his head. "No, Miss Darcy. You've sort of spoiled ordinary +girls for me." + +She cried honestly, "I hope not! Oh, I do hope not! Because I was going +to beg you to stay friends with me--I need friends. And I _can't_ keep +you if you're going to go on feeling that way!" + +"Sure you can," said Archie, his eyes lighting. "Just try me and see! +I'll make one of the best little old pals you ever saw, if you'll just +forgive the fool way I acted. Now that the steam's sort of blown off, +we--we understand each other." + +"You're certain that we _do_ understand each other?" Her gaze met his +squarely. "You're not going to expect things that can't ever be?" + +"No, ma'am," said Archie. + +Tears suddenly came into her eyes. There was a quality in this faithful, +doglike devotion that made her feel ashamed. It deserved response; it +deserved something better than mere affectionate gratitude. But that was +all she found herself able to give. + +With a demonstrativeness rarer than he guessed, she caught his big hand +in both of hers and held it for a moment to her cheek. When she let it +go there was a tear on the back of it; which Archie, gazing at +wonderingly, suddenly lifted to his lips. + +It was in acts like this, little untaught gestures of pure reverence, +that the boy belied his slang and his big ears and his general +clumsiness, and harked back to the age of chivalry, when a gentleman was +not ashamed to dedicate himself to the service of his lady, and be her +very perfect knight.... + +After he had gone, Effie May wandered into Joan's room with a slight air +of expectancy about her which the girl was too preoccupied to notice. + +"You're lookin' sort of white about the gills, dearie," she remarked. +"Does the shoulder pain you?" + +"No. But something else does, and I don't know just what. Oh, Effie May, +what's the matter with me, anyway?" she burst out. "Sometimes I think +I'm not a human person at all, but just a big inflated Ego, floating +around like an observation balloon, taking notes!" + +"Well, well, is that so?" murmured her step-mother, who had her doubts +as to what an Ego might be. "I expect what you need for that floaty +feeling, dearie, is a good dose of calomel--" and she hurried away to +prepare it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +There is a certain period of the year when all its widely scattered +children home to Kentucky as surely as bluebirds home to the hollow +stumps in March. It is the season of the May race meet. + +All her life Joan had heard of the Kentucky Derby, and she looked +forward to it with almost as much eagerness as her father. Derby Day +means more to the Kentuckian than the running event that has become +classic. It means the reunion in street and club and hotel-lobby of +neighbors from the various towns of a State where neighborliness is +cultivated to the point of a fine art; of men who have been boys +together; of friends whose ways have drifted far apart (for your +Kentuckian is a great wanderer), and who have years to make up over the +clinking glasses. During the spring race meet, Louisville ceases to be +merely Louisville, and becomes Kentucky, the great old mother-home that +leaves its stamp upon its children even into the third and fourth +generation. + +There is a good deal of sentiment about the Derby, a good deal of +tradition; and there is as well a certain spirit of carefree, sporting, +joyous _bonhomie_ whose like is not to be found perhaps on any other +race-course in the world. + +Joan, who loved crowds, got much pleasure out of the streets at this +time. She took appreciative note of self-conscious belles from up-State, +in picture-hats and peek-a-boo blouses, with a predilection for wearing +long-stemmed roses pinned to their belts. She noted the young farmers +who accompanied them, big-shouldered, square-chinned, clear-eyed, +crimson with the sun--a sturdy, virile type, clumsy in their +country-made clothes, but with well-stuffed wallets bulging their hip +pockets. There is no poverty in the farming regions of Kentucky. + +She learned to recognize the professional racing people, men in +loud-checked clothes talking an incomprehensible jargon; shabby touts +offering confidential tips to anybody who would listen; women wearing +diamonds as large as peas, overdressed, coarse-voiced, not easily +distinguishable from their sisters of the underworld, except that their +men accompanied them openly. + +People of the larger world there were, too. The narrow streets were +congested with great touring-cars bearing unfamiliar license tags; New +York, Michigan, California. Once, hearing crisp Eastern voices at her +elbow, Joan turned just in time to see some people she had met at +Longmeadow disappearing into a hotel. For a moment her heart stood +still. She thought Eduard Desmond was among them. But it proved to be +another man, and Joan mingled hastily in the crowd, relieved that they +had not noticed her. + +In all this preparatory excitement Major Darcy was, as his wife put it, +"busy as a bird dog." There were kinspeople from the Bluegrass to be +welcomed, cousins from Paducah, Maysville, Fayette County. Joan, who did +not altogether share her father's enthusiasm for the ties of kinship, +rather admired her step-mother's skill in side-stepping the Major's +abounding sense of hospitality. Effie May had taken the precaution to +fill her house with paper-hangers. + +"What a shame! You'll have to take your cousins and things to the hotel, +Dickie, or put 'em up at the Country Club, won't you? If I'd only +thought!--" she murmured innocently; but catching Jean's suspicious eye +upon her, she winked. + +Joan returned the wink. She remembered her mother's patience under the +constant influx of Darcy relatives. She had also seen the unfortunate +Misses Darcy almost turned out of doors by the daily increasing numbers +of their kith and kin. The bookcase in their parlor had become, +surprisingly, a bed; and Miss Euphemia, the plump, as the one best +fitted by nature for this ordeal, was spending her nights on a +packing-box sparsely mitigated by pillows.--Not that the Misses Darcy +complained, however. They were long inured to the hospitalities of Derby +week. + +Effie May, indeed, was the only person of Joan's acquaintance who seemed +unaffected by the general excitement over the Derby. She heard with +apparent indifference that the Major had been able to secure a box +directly opposite the judges' stand, and she declined to rise early +enough to accompany him and Joan to Sunday morning breakfast at the +Jockey Club, where enthusiasts met regularly to inspect and pass +critical judgment on the offerings of the past week. + +"Lord, child!" she said once in answer to Joan's surprise at this +indifference. "Horses ain't no treat to me. You see, they used to be my +bread and butter." + +It was one of her few references to a past that rather intrigued her +step-daughter. + +"Were both of your husbands turfmen?" asked the girl, curiously. + +Effie May gave a brief nod; and Joan did not somehow feel encouraged to +further questioning. + +Derby Day dawned bright and sunny. + +"A fast track, Dollykins," cried the Major in great glee. "We ought to +break a record to-day!" + +"That means the Long colt," said Joan learnedly. "The Camden entry's apt +to prove a mud-hen." + +She had in the past week made an exhaustive research into the race-horse +question. Breeding and pedigree, record and past performance, rolled +trippingly from her tongue. Joan was what the theatrical profession call +"quick study." + +The Darcys had been invited to go out to the tracks in the approved +fashion, on top of a tallyho coach, tooled by Johnny Carmichael--who was +not quite as sober as might have been wished. But his four-in-hand +seemed aware of the fact, and took no ungenerous advantage of him. + +Effie May had awakened that morning with a bad headache, and proclaimed +her intention of staying at home. + +"What! Not see the Derby run?" cried her husband incredulously. + +And when with a great shouting and tooting of horns the tallyho drew up +under the porte-cochere, her determination weakened. + +"Oh, do come on, Mrs. Darcy! The air will do you good, and we shan't +have half as much fun without you!" cried several voices, for she was +very popular with young people. + +She hesitated. Joan decided the matter. + +"Put on a heavy veil to shield your eyes from the glare," she suggested; +and Effie May yielded. It was not often that her step-daughter asked for +her society. + +They became part of a procession that had been filing steadily past the +Darcy house since sunrise. Every vehicle in town and the surrounding +country, horse-power or motor-power, was on its way to the races. +Street-cars passed in a solid line, with passengers hanging to the +straps, bulging out of the windows, crowding on to the roofs. There was +a steady throng of foot-passengers, all heading in the same direction, +which hailed the tallyho as it passed with shouts of greeting and good +luck. The tallyho responded with tooting horns and waving parasols. + +It was a friendly, intimate, highly democratic gathering such as may be +found only south of Mason and Dixon's line; never pushing or jostling, +but good-naturedly determined to enjoy itself. At the gate humanity was +packed in a dense, immovable mass as far as the eye could see, and Joan, +descending from her elevation, looked at the crowd in mild alarm. But +the cry arose, "Make way for the ladies!" and instantly a lane appeared +as if by magic, through which she and her companions made royal +progress, laughing at the personalities which greeted them as they +passed. + +"Nobody ever minds what happens on Derby Day!" explained Emily +Carmichael. + +Once in the box, the men of the party deserted in a body for the betting +ring, and Effie May promptly hailed a messenger. Her interest in racing +seemed to have revived. + +"Let's see your tips, girls--anything good?" + +She looked over their various lists in a business-like way, approving +this, discarding that, displaying a knowledge that put Joan's recent +learned discussions to shame. + +"Will-o'-the-Wisp, Satyr out of Firefly. Umm! Ought! to be worth taking +a shot at. Who's up--Casey? No. Won't do! They'll can that crooked +little jock yet--" etc., etc., while her companions eyed her with +respect, and the messenger consulted with her laconically as with an +equal. + +"You want to play 'em straight across the board, dearie;" she admonished +Joan. "That's the only way to win. No piking!" + +But Joan declined to play them straight across the board, or in any way +at all. For one thing she had brought no purse. For another she was far +too busy with the people about her. + +Faces rose behind her in a packed mass to the top of the +grandstand--women's faces for the most part; school-girls, nice old +ladies, mothers of families (who occasionally fed their families under +the casual shelter of a shawl), gum-chewing shop-girls, houris of every +variety, respectable and otherwise, all chatting together with the +utmost simplicity under the spell of a common interest. In the boxes, +and on the clubhouse porch, were girls and women most of whom she knew, +dressed as if for a garden party. Chiffons fluttered in the breeze, +plumes waved, there were bared throats, and lace-covered arms, and +dainty white slippers. Here and there appeared the more conventional +tailored dress, looking almost conspicuous in its severity. For on Derby +Day, Louisville harks back to a custom as old as itself, and frankly +looks its loveliest. + +Just behind Joan in the front row of the grandstand sat a respectable, +gray-headed little old woman with a bonnet tied under her chin, quite +alone, who looked as staid and out of place as Ellen Neal would have +done in these surroundings. But she had a professional-looking pair of +fieldglasses at her eyes, and Joan noticed that her lips were constantly +moving and muttering. The girl turned her back on the Derby to watch +this odd figure. + +At first she thought the old creature was praying; but the syllables +that reached her ears were not prayer. + +"Come on, you Will-o'-the-Wisp! Hop it, baby! 'Ata-boy! Step, darlin', +step lively! Oh, you Will-o'-the-Wisp!" + +Joan saw that she was not merely watching the great race, she was riding +it, with whip, and knee, and voice. And at a certain moment the girl saw +that she had lost it. There was a shrug, a little despairing gesture of +the glasses, and the muttering ceased. + +An explanation suddenly occurred to Joan. She nudged Effie May. "Look at +this funny old soul behind us! She's evidently the mother of the jockey +that's riding Will-o'-the-Wisp," she whispered. + +Effie May glanced briefly over her shoulder, and smiled. "Mother +nothing! That's Texas Nell, who's been following the ponies since the +day of Molly McCarthy. She's lost and won more money, I guess, than any +woman in the business." + +A little later she suggested that they all adjourn to the Club House for +refreshments; but Archie Blair had come with the promise of taking Joan +down to the paddock later, and she decided to stay where she was. + +Archie, who seemed to know everybody, pointed out various celebrities +who were present; fine old General Dutton, down from Lexington with his +flock of famous though still unmarried daughters; Nick Sanders of the +Pisgah neighborhood, who had just escaped conviction for manslaughter +because of the unwritten law; Mrs. Kildare of Storm, a splendid-looking +woman in mannish hat and driving coat, here to see one of her colts go +to the post in the Derby--though of late years Storm was raising mules +instead of race-horses. + +"A shame, too, when it's one of the oldest stud-farms in the State," +commented Archie. "Racing's on its last legs when people like the +Kildares turn to breeding mules!" + +But racing did not appear to be on its last legs that day. The +eagerness, the wild enthusiasm, above all the joyousness of the crowd, +struck an answering chord in Joan. For the first time she really +understood the devotion of Kentuckians to their State and to each other. +It is never their work that endears a people to each other; it is their +play. In a world that takes itself overseriously, Kentucky still knows +how to play. + +She followed Archie presently down toward the paddock where the winner +was to receive his ovation; but as they reached the foot of the +staircase, suddenly there was the sharp explosion of a pistol. Instantly +the crowd surged in the direction of the shot. + +Archie, placing her behind him, forged his way through the struggling +mass to the nearest wall, where he stood her, breathless and disheveled, +but undismayed. + +"Goodness! This is local color with a vengeance! What's happening? Do +you suppose it's your man-eating friend from Pisgah?" + +"Just an old woman shot herself, they say," volunteered a friendly voice +near by, "Cleaned out, I reckon!" + +One of the intuitions to which Joan was liable came to her. Glancing up +at the grandstand, she saw the seat just behind hers was empty. + +"Oh, Archie! It's _my_ little old woman!" she cried pitifully. "Go and +see, will you?--a shabby old thing with a bonnet tied under her chin." + +He hesitated. "I don't like to leave you here alone. Suppose somebody +should speak to you?" + +"Then I shall most certainly speak back!" she said, and he reluctantly +obeyed her wish. Indeed, with Archie, her wishes were apt to assume the +form of commands. + +The gaiety of the scene was gone for Joan. She had got her glimpse of +the grim reality that lies beneath. She was to have another glimpse of +it. + +As she stood there, buffeted by the passing throng, she caught sight +across the wide passageway of her step-mother, in conversation with +somebody who for a moment she did not see. Joan started across to join +her. Effie May's back was toward her, and not until Joan was within +hearing distance did she notice the man to whom her step-mother was +speaking. Then she stopped where she was, startled. + +He was a dissipated-looking creature, hardly better in appearance than a +race-horse tout, flashily dressed, wearing a large diamond in his +tie--altogether one of the least desirable types of those who follow the +races. But he was not only talking with evident familiarity to Mrs. +Darcy, he had taken hold of her arm. It came to Joan in a flash that the +man was doubtless some relative, possibly her brother. What did they +know of Effie May's family? + +Joan stood still and frankly listened. + +"No, no, you don't put that over on me, old girl," this person was +saying in a low but carrying voice. "You're not going to slip away on me +again _that_ easy!" + +Her step-mother's rejoinder did not reach Joan's ears, but she saw her +glance round uneasily. Joan did not blame her for not wishing to be seen +with her present companion. She quietly slipped behind the shelter of a +pillar. + +"Married, eh?" repeated the man's voice. "Come, that's a good one! I'm +from Missouri, I am. You'll be sayin' Calloway married you next. Oho! he +did, eh? A bigger fool than I took him for! If that's the case--" his +voice sharpened--"you must a' come in for a pretty good thing when he +croaked. You'll have to come across, old sport. No going back on a pal!" + +The color suddenly went out of Joan's cheeks. She leaned against her +pillar, feeling rather queer. She wished she were not there--and yet she +listened. + +Effie May's voice reached her, speaking quite steadily, "Not one cent, +Joe! You're no pal of mine. When I left you it was for good and all, and +you know why!" + +"Humm! Well, we'll see what your new husband thinks about it, eh?" + +"No, you don't!" It was a sort of gasp; but instantly the voice steadied +again. "You'll never lay eyes on my husband, Joe. He doesn't live here. +I--I just happened to come over for the races." + +The man grinned. "That's easy enough! I seen you drivin' in with your +swell friends, and sittin' in a box and all. Recognized you right away, +too, for all that thick veil. You ain't the sort a man forgets easy, +Ef," he leered. "Not when he's knowed you like I have! I'll get your +name before you leave this stand, and then--Better come across, kiddo!" + +"I--let me go now, Joe! I'll think it over." + +The man chuckled. "Afraid somebody'll see you talking to me, eh? You can +bet your sweet life you'll think it over, and damn quick, too! See?" + +His grip tightened on her arm. Effie May glanced this way and that, +nervously. Joan stepped out from behind her pillar. After all, the woman +was her father's wife! She must be protected.... + +Just then she saw Archie coming, and hurried to him. + +"It was an old lady with a bonnet tied under her chin," he told her +soberly. "She's dead." + +But Joan had no ears for the earlier tragedy. + +"There's a man frightening Mrs. Darcy," she said breathlessly, "he seems +to be somebody she knows. He's--threatening her! Oh, Archie, what shall +we do?" + +The meaning of it, the incredible sordid horror of the thing she had +half learned, began to come home to her. Her father's wife! + +"Threatening!" Archie's jaw set. "Here, that won't do!" + +He strode forward, Joan following. They both heard the man say with +leering distinctness, "It ought to be worth a _little_ cash to a loving +husband to learn the sort of woman he's married up with, Ef, old girl!" + +Then Archie's hand fell on his shoulder. + +Joan never forgot the face her step-mother turned upon them--She made a +desperate attempt to rally. + +"Why--why, dearie! is that you? A--an old friend of mine's been giving +me a tip." + +"Get out," said Archie to the man. "Get out, quick!" + +"Hold on there, kid--So, you been robbing the cradle this time, Ef?" He +grinned at her evilly. "Wait a minute, mister, there's a few things I +might be able to tell you about this party--" + +"Nothing I don't know already," muttered Archie, his grip tightening. +"You've got five minutes to get off the grounds before I tell the +police. Blackmail's a penitentiary offense in this State." + +The man hesitated, looked at Archie's grim jaw, and went.... + +Joan and her step-mother gazed at each other. The woman's face had a +curious gray look under its perennial bloom, and she moistened her lips +with a dry tongue. + +"You--you heard?" she said at last. + +Joan nodded. She could not speak. + +It was Archie who remarked quietly: "You'll want to be going home, I +guess. I'll get a taxicab." + +Then sheer pity overcame the horror in the girl's mind. "Yes, Mother. +Come home with me!" she murmured. + +For the first and last time in her life she had called her father's wife +"Mother." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +"I guess you've got to have the whole story now, though it ain't a very +pretty story to tell a girl," said Effie May wearily. "I don't know as +your papa would much want you to hear it, Joan...." + +To the girl the whole episode seemed unreal, part of that strange day, +with the holiday crowds, the brief, hectic excitement of the races, +followed by the pistol-shot that meant the death of a ruined old woman. +She could not believe that she, Joan Darcy, convent-bred, the daughter +of reserved and fastidious people, could be actually participating in +this impossible melodrama. + +"What my father would wish hardly matters now, I think," she said, more +frigidly than she realized. "Please say what you have to say." + +All the way home her step-mother had wept, steadily and hopelessly, with +ugly snuffling noises that took away what dignity there might have been +in her grief. Joan, always helpless in the face of uncontrolled emotion, +made no effort to comfort her. Her impulse of pity had already died into +disgust. She could not look at that swollen, grayish face, of whose +careful complexion tears made strange havoc. + +The woman sighed. "If only you weren't so young!--I suppose you think +I'm a bad lot--bad as they make 'em. But I'm not. I never was. Oh, I +know I've done things ladies don't do!--but then ladies ain't often +asked to do 'em, dearie. You got to remember that." + +Joan shrugged, and resigned herself to hear what she was to hear. + +"I guess you know I wasn't born a lady, nor raised like one, though I've +tried.... Well, never mind that!--Pa had a little cash-and-carry grocer +store over to Indianapolis, and we lived upstairs, all of us in two +rooms.... It was the dirt I couldn't stand, and the crowding. It ain't +_right_ for a whole lot of children to live like that, all mixed in so! +The others didn't seem to mind, but I was always sort of nice in my +ways. Maybe because I was born before Mom took to the coke." + +"The what?" + +"Coke--dope, you know. It was the only thing that seemed to keep her +going, poor Mom! and I'm glad she had it." + +"Was your mother an invalid?" asked Joan, a little startled by this +breadth of tolerance. + +"Oh, no. But kids come along once a year regular, and she wasn't ever, +so to speak, well. I made up my mind when I wasn't more than ten never +to get myself in the fix Ma was in!... My two older sisters felt that +way, too, I guess. They always had fellows, but not the sort that'd do +to marry. Men like Pa, you know. No 'count--One of the girls worked at a +dressmaker's, and sewed till her eyes were red all the time, and her +shoulders stooped and she coughed. The other--well, the other didn't +keep straight, dearie. Awful few of the girls I knew did keep straight. +But Mame went into one of those houses--you know?--and had a lot of +swell clothes, and jewelry and all. I remember all us younger ones used +to envy her. But she didn't last long at it, and she died--horrible." + +Effie May's eyes were fixed on strange places, and the tragedy of the +world was in them. + +"She used to be a pretty thing, Mame; and sweet, too.... Well, it seemed +to me there ought to be _something_ better for a girl than marrying a +man like Pa and slaving, or getting a good job like Jule's and slaving, +or going wrong like Mame and slaving worst of all! Once when I was out +delivering dresses for the dressmaker where Jule worked, I saw what I +was looking for. Society women. Ladies. + +"That's what I'm going to be," I says to myself, "a Society woman! (I +was about twelve then.) You don't have to work, you live in a fine house +and wear swell clothes, and you can keep as straight as you like. + +"The others used to laugh at me, but Mom never did. She was real +ambitious for her children, Mom was. 'You keep on thinkin' so and you'll +get there,' she used to say. 'You're smart and pretty enough for +anything!' And so I was, then!" Effie May gave a sigh. + +"A fellow come along presently that looked pretty good to me. I met him +over to Casey's dance-hall, I remember, and from the first it was all up +with him. He was better than the fellows I'd been running with; a good +dresser, always flashing his roll--you know race-horse people used to +make good money before the Pari-Mutuels--And when he wanted me to come +over here to Louisville with him--well, it looked to be my +chance--Imagine starting out to be a lady, in company with Joe +Markheim!" said Effie May grimly. + +Joan exclaimed, "Not that dreadful-looking creature you were talking +with to-day?" + +The other nodded. "Only he wasn't dreadful-looking then. He was real +handsome--or he looked that way to me. You see I was only sixteen," she +sighed. "Almost anything in pants that'd take me away from home would +have looked good to me then, I guess!--But I talked to Mom about it, and +she thought I'd better take a chance, too. So I went." + +The girl had begun to shiver a little. "You mean--you married him?" + +Effie May gave her a queer look. "Well, yes. As near as I could. You see +he had a wife at the time." + +"He--betrayed you, then?" gasped Joan. + +"Oh, no, dearie, I knew. So did Ma. But we thought I'd better take a +chance.... You see, things like that depend on how you're raised. To us +it was almost the same as being married. Not like poor Mame, you know. +There's a whole lot of difference between a kept woman, and _her_ sort." + +"Is there?" said Joan with stiff lips. + +"My, yes! Sometimes if the man sees you're straight, he marries you +after a while.... But Joe didn't. I'm sure I don't know why I stuck to +him as long as I did, except, that I'm sort of an affectionate +disposition and don't like to change," she ruminated. "And then he began +to play in pretty bad luck, too, and that's not the time to leave a man, +when he's down and out. I guess I'd have been sticking yet, if he'd +acted decent--I ain't going to tell you what he asked me to do once when +he got on his uppers," she said, darkly flushing, "but it was something +no gentleman would have proposed to a woman who'd stuck to him through +thick and thin for years! That's when I left him for Calloway." + +"Did--did Mr. Calloway marry you?" asked Joan faintly. + +"Sure he did! Just before he died. He got religion, and the priest told +him he ought, so as he could leave me his money without any fuss. He was +a good old sport, that priest! And so was Calloway. Never turned a hair. +'Wish I'd done it before!' says he--Don't you think that's a pretty good +recommendation for a woman, when a man's willing to marry her after +living with her for fifteen years?" she asked wistfully. + +"I suppose so," murmured Joan--The usual thing was happening to her. Old +standards receded. Inevitably, irresistibly, she was beginning to see +things through the other's eyes. This was Joan's great weakness--though +there were people who considered it her strength. + +"Calloway was pretty near to being a gentleman--not a born one, like +your papa, dearie, but real genteel in his instincts, and he did a whole +lot to make a lady of me. He always insisted on us having the best of +everything, company especially. When he knew he had to die, poor +boy!"--her lips trembled--"he says to me, says he, 'Here's your chance, +old girl! Take the money, and go somewhere and make a fresh start,' he +says. 'You'll do! You're good as any of 'em.' His very words, dearie! +'You're good as any of 'em.'"--She wiped her eyes. + +"And so you came here?" prompted the girl. + +"Yes. I'd always liked the place. It seemed sort of friendly and +homelike, and it's small enough so that your money counts for something. +It wouldn't be lost, I thought, like in New York or Chicago--But I was +kind of lonesome at first--always been used to having a man around--and +I didn't know anybody. And then your mama died, and I saw my way clear. +You didn't know I knew your mama, did you, dearie?" + +Joan was rather startled. She had not realized quite how early her life +and her father's had been swept into the stream of this woman's +ambition. + +"Well, I did. Not to speak to, of course. But I used to watch her out of +my back windows, and think what a lady she was to be so poor, and wished +I knew how to scrape acquaintance with her. And once she caught me +watching her, and smiled up, just as sweet, as if she'd known me always +and liked me. (Sort of the way _you_ smile, dearie, when you're real +pleased.)--And when she died the idea came to me, all of a sudden, that +I was the person to look after them she'd left." + +Suddenly she buried her face in her hands and began to weep again. "Oh, +Gawd! Think of where I'd got to, and look where I'm at now!" + +Joan moved restlessly about the room, conscious of the ache of tears in +her own throat. She pictured that child of the streets and dancehalls, +poor little "Lightfoot Ef," as they called her, struggling to better her +condition, sturdily trying to find some tenable place of her own in +life, even as she, Joan, was trying--but under what hopeless handicaps! +She thought of the cocaine-drugged mother with ambitions; of the evil, +treacherous creature with whom the child had chosen to "take a chance"; +and it began to seem almost a miracle that Effie May should be what she +was. Joan looked at her with something like respect. + +"But I heard you tell my father you had buried two husbands!" she said +sharply. "If you really felt that you were 'good as any of them,' +that--that you had practically been married--why didn't you make a clean +breast of it all?" + +"Because I'm no fool!" gulped Effie May. "There are some things a man +won't stand for--though God knows why _they_ should be so all-fired +particular! And it seemed the only chance I'd ever get to marry a real +gentleman. Besides, there was you." + +"Me?" + +"Why, yes, dearie. I'd never had any children, and I always thought if I +could have I'd like 'em all to be girls, that I could dress up, and do +for, and bring up nice.... Oh, Gawd, Gawd!" she moaned, suddenly +flinging herself across the bed, face down. "Here I am in a grand house, +with a limousine, and servants of my own, and a husband like a king, and +a young lady daughter in society, and me giving parties to the pick of +the land!... And now to go down again, back to the gutter!" She beat the +bed with her fists. + +There was something appalling in the utter abandonment of this woman +whom Joan had never before seen otherwise than cheerful and poised. + +"If I'd never gone to the races! Oh, Gawd! If I'd never gone! I had a +hunch. I knew I'd meet up with that skunk Joe again somewheres, and I'd +ought to have kept out of his way! There isn't a soul in this town could +'a' told on me unless it was that boy Blair." + +"Archie?" repeated Joan, surprised. + +"Yes," she sobbed. "He spotted me the first time he saw me--I don't know +how. But I could 'a' kept _his_ mouth shut all right!--I was fixing him +so he'd never tell...." + +In her abandonment Effie May might have said rather more than she meant +to say, if at that moment a great honking of horns and shouting of gay +farewells had not announced the return of the tallyho from the Derby. + +She sat erect with a gasp. "It's _him_! For goodness' sake don't let +your papa catch me like this!" She flew to her dressing-table, reaching +for cold cream, powder, rouge. "Keep him off," she besought the girl. +"Quick!--pull down those shades--there, that's better. Help me into a +negligee--no, no, not that green one, for heaven's sake!--a pink one. +Now some perfume. Tell him he must be very quiet because of my +headache--don't forget, that's why we came home. There!--how do I look?" + +She leaned back languidly in a chaise-longue, with a handkerchief dipped +in cologne hiding her swollen eyes. + +Joan, rather dazed, had assisted at these hasty rites, marveling at the +triviality of a mind which could turn in one second from the catastrophe +of a wrecked life to considerations of vanity. And then the sheer +desperation of the thing struck her. Effie May was not done yet. She +meant to go down fighting. + +There was something in the girl that always responded to gallant effort. + +"Good luck," she said queerly, and went to the door. + +"Wait!" gasped the woman. "Joan! _Are you going to tell him right +away?_" + +"Not--right away," said the girl slowly. + +There came a little rush behind her. Effie May had caught up one of her +hands, and kissed it.... + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + +The girl had a difficult problem before her. She wrestled with it +throughout a sleepless night. She felt like Fate, with human destinies +in her control. + +At one moment her course seemed clear beyond the question of a doubt. It +was unthinkable that her father should continue to recognize as his +wife--her mother's successor!--a woman who had led an immoral life, who +had earned the very money that supported them by living for years as the +mistress of another man. Joan's cheeks burned with the thought. + +At the next moment, she wondered what her father would do without the +woman. She had no illusions left regarding Richard Darcy. He had never +in his futile life stood on his own two feet. He was one of the +inefficients, who must be cared for. Now, weakened morally and +physically by the habit of luxurious living, he was less able than ever +to take care of himself. Age was coming upon him rapidly. In the +struggle of life, he must go down utterly to defeat--Unless his daughter +could help him; and so far his daughter had been unable even to help +herself. + +The girl wondered, too, her heart sick within her, whether he would +consent to give up the luxury he loved when he learned the shame that +went with it.... Not that he would be able to forgive the woman! She +knew his fixed standards, his pride of race, too well to expect of him +any such magnanimity. The vulgarity of Effie May had been quite enough +for him to swallow, as it was. + +Joan thought that if, knowing his wife's past and utterly despising her, +he yet kept her because of material benefits, it would be a shame she +personally could not bear. Better, perhaps, that he be not put to the +test. + +And yet--in her mother's place, a woman of the town! (The girl was not +able to make the fine distinctions in vice suggested by her +step-mother.) + +There had to be considered, also, the fraudulency of continuing to +inflict such a woman on society in the guise of a lady. + +The word brought back a rush of pity to Joan's heart. Effie May had done +her best to be a "lady," poor creature, even to the extent of vainly +trying to remodel her speech and her manners on those of her new +family.... + +Joan, very white and drawn about the lips, ordered her horse in the +early morning and went for a long gallop, hoping to clear her brain. +When she returned, with nothing decided, she found Archie Blair in the +library waiting for her. + +She had never before been so glad to see him. It came upon her, with a +rush of relief, that here was somebody with whom she could discuss her +problem, whose advice she could ask. Archie knew! He was not very +clever, perhaps, never subtle nor quick in his mental processes; but +there was something sure about him, something utterly honest and +dependable. + +Evidently he had given others the same impression. + +"Mrs. Darcy sent for me to come out and talk things over," he said +gravely. "She wanted me to speak to you. She thought maybe I could make +you understand better." + +"Sent for _you_? Why, but you've never been one of her friends. You've +never even pretended to be!" + +"No," he said simply. "She isn't my sort, and she don't belong here. +She's too flossy. But since she's here, I'm sorry for her--Now that you +know, what are you going to do about it, Miss Darcy?" + +Joan laid her problem before him with a frankness she would not have +believed possible. She told him about her father. Never before, not even +to Stefan Nikolai, had she disclosed Richard Darcy quite as she had come +to know him latterly. It was an analysis that would have looked too +brutal set down in black and white. + +Archie listened thoughtfully, and with no appearance of embarrassment or +consciousness that the conversation was unusual. There was something in +his masculinity that never suggested sex. + +"I get you," he said at last. "You can't make up your mind whether to +upset the apple-cart and ease your conscience, or keep your mouth shut +and let everybody live happily ever after." + +Joan looked at him quickly. She had not expected quite such a lucid +summing up of the situation from Archie. But he seemed unconscious of +epigram. + +"Did I ever tell you," he asked irrelevantly, "about an old gentleman +that took our room after--well, after my mother went away--and let me go +on living with him because he said I was too small to make any +difference? A queer old bird he was, drinking himself to death as fast +as he could, but mighty good to me. It was him--he, I mean--who taught +me to read, and started me going to night school, and got me my first +job. When he was about half-lit he used to talk to me as if I was just +his age, about all sorts of things, life and books and folks--and one of +the things he used to say kind of stuck in my head. 'When in doubt, +Archibald' (he was the only person I ever knew who called me all of +it!), 'when in doubt, always be a little kinder than necessary....' +Pretty good dope, I think." + +There was a long silence. + +Then Joan said slowly: "Thank you, Archie! Yes, it is pretty good dope. +And your old drunkard must have been a good deal of a man. You must tell +me more about him some day." + +She gave her shoulders a little shake of relief. + +"Very well!--I won't upset the apple-cart. I didn't much want to, +anyway!" + +Archie smiled at her widely. It was a smile that said, "I knew it!" and +"Good girl!" and a number of other things that made Joan blush. She had +come by insensible degrees to value rather highly the good opinion of +her protege. + +"But there's one thing sure," he said, sobering. "You'll be wanting to +get out of the apple-cart yourself!" + +That, too, Joan had faced in her long night's vigil. The question of her +future was no longer hovering in space. It was here, immediate, urgent. +She would have liked if possible not to spend another hour under the +roof that had been supplied by the late Mr. Calloway. + +They discussed the matter of her living in every aspect. + +"You mean you haven't got a red cent to your name, Miss Darcy? Gee!" +muttered Archie. "What was the old chap thinking of? Oil stocks! Might +as well have put the money on the races." Even in his loyal mind the +Major had undergone something of an eclipse. + +"Better, because then we could have seen it run," sighed Joan. "However, +it's gone, and now I've got to get busy!" (Archibald's language was +rather contagious.) + +She told him of her two alternatives. The stage he absolutely vetoed. + +"It's no place for a lady," he said stubbornly, and would listen to no +argument. Joan suddenly remembered that his mother had been an actress. +She did not pursue the question. + +"Newspaper work might do," he admitted. "A society reporter with the +pull you've got ought to be worth some money." + +"A society reporter!--You mean I'd have to go to my friends' houses and +publish what happens there? Oh, Archie, I'm afraid I couldn't do that." + +"Why not?" he said innocently. "They like it." + +But Joan persisted. "I'm willing to report _anything_ except society." + +"Murders? Police courts?" he suggested grimly. + +"Yes, if I must." + +"Well, I guess not!" said Archie. + +She laughed a little helplessly. "But, Archie, you veto everything I +suggest! Really, you're not very helpful. Don't you understand that I've +_got_ to earn my living, right at once? I'm unskilled labor. Beggars +can't be choosers. You'd suppose nothing was good enough for me!" + +"And it isn't!... Gosh!" he said miserably--(she saw that his big hands +were shaking)--"The idea makes me right down sick! A little delicate +thing like you, out in the scramble with the rest of us--! I know what +it is, you see. Bad enough for a fellow, sometimes. I know the things a +working girl has to do and stand for. Honest to God, I'd rather see you +married!" he groaned. + +Unselfish devotion could go no farther, and Joan knew it. + +She suddenly found herself on the verge of tears. She was tired out, +mind, soul, and body. She would have liked to put her head down on his +shoulder and simply cry till she was comforted. It was such a big, broad +shoulder, so amply adapted to the bearing of burdens. She could make him +happy, too, poor boy! One and all, people seemed to expect nothing of +her but marriage--her father, Effie May, Stefan Nikolai, and now Archie. +Perhaps they knew best. They were many and she only one. Temptation +beset her--or was it inspiration? She did not know.... + +Meanwhile Archie was elaborating his forlorn idea. "Isn't there +_somebody_ who would do?" he urged. "Surely of all the fellows who've +been hanging round, there ought to be one decent chap who'd give his +head and ears to keep you out of this--to take you away from here +himself?" + +Joan made her decision. + +"I think there is," she said tremulously. "Only--he won't say so." + +"The big mutt!" cried Archie--and then paused. Her expression, the +significance of her voice, began to penetrate his humility. + +"You--_you're not joshing me_?" he gasped. + +Joan put out quick hands as though to ward him off, suddenly afraid of +the glow she had kindled in his face. + +"Wait, Archie! I don't love you--you know that. Not as you love me, I +mean. I don't believe I ever will love anybody that way. I--perhaps I'm +not fine enough--But I do like you and trust you more than anybody else +in the world. And so--if that's enough--If you want me--" + +"_Do I want you?_" Archie gripped the edge of his chair to keep himself +anchored to _terra firma_. "Say, Miss Darcy, I--I--" + +"Don't you think," she suggested with a quivering smile, "that as we are +about to become engaged, you might begin to call me 'Joan'?" + +At that, with a great cry of "JOAN!" he gave up hold on the chair and +_terra firma_ together. + + * * * * * + +The sound of the overturned chair brought Effie May on a reconnoitering +expedition to the upper landing of the stairs, which commanded an +unsuspected view of the library. What she saw caused her to tiptoe away, +smiling to herself a little sadly. + +"_His_ mouth's stopped all right--" she thought (with perfect +truth)--"now that it doesn't matter!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +There were those, notably among the Jabberwocks, who felt that in +availing herself of the age-old solution of handing her burdens over to +a man to bear, Joan had rather hauled down her colors. Perhaps she felt +so herself, after the first glow of relief was over. + +But if she needed solace, she got it in the radiant, incredulous, +blissful attitude of Archibald. He could not believe the marvelous thing +that had happened to him. A dozen times a day he was obliged to glance +at the ring he had given her (a solitaire inevitably, small but of good +water) to make sure that he was not dreaming. + +He began at once, following the example of the birds about him, to +prepare for the coming event; "twigging" as Joan called it to herself, +amusedly. He was as mysterious about it, and quite as obvious, as any +robin darting about with a straw in its beak. He called her to the +telephone frequently to ask such questions as how many drawers a +"chiffoneer" ought to have; and when she asked him why he wanted to +know, the reply was a joyous, "Never you mind!" + +He listened with the stealth of a Sherlock Holmes for any expressions of +preference on her part, putting them secretly down in a note-book; and +Joan grew afraid to mention any object, no matter how unlikely, for fear +it would become part of the procession of packages which Ellen reported +as filing daily past her door to the room upstairs. + +"A rocking-chair come this morning," Ellen would report. "Golden oak, +all carved! Yesterday it was one them new-fangled electric-lamps with +brass chain hanging down like fringe. Real tasty. The day before it was +a statute." + +"Heavens, Nellen--Not a statue!" + +"Sure! A nigger woman brandishin' a spear. I poked a hole in the +wrappin's to get a good look at it." + +(Joan had once unguardedly envied the Carmichaels their rare old +bronzes.) + +She was touched but alarmed, and decided that she would better hasten +the wedding if only to put a stop to this indiscriminate twigging. + +Others were almost as pleased with the engagement as Archibald; her +father, for one, who had not expected quite so early a release from +parental responsibility. Joan, while a creditable child, had proven a +rather difficult one, especially since his marriage. + +"Not that it is quite such an--er--ambitious arrangement as I could have +wished, Dollykins,"--(a ducal alliance would have been more in accord +with Darcy inclinations). "But young Blair is an excellent fellow, an +excellent fellow. And after all, in this world virtue is the thing that +counts!" He appeared to indicate that in the next world things might be +arranged more satisfactorily. + +Ellen was as proud of this unexpected _denouement_ as if it were an egg +of her own hatching. + +"I didn't believe you had the gumption!" she said unflatteringly. "I +thought you was too highminded to know a real man when you seen +him.--And now, praise the day! you'll be needin' your mamma's furniture +back again." + +"Oh, but, Nellen darling, what will you do without it?" + +"Me?" The old woman's face fell. "Why, I kind o' thought you'd be takin' +me along with the furniture. Unless I'm too stiff and plain to be makin' +you a fancy servant like you're used to nowadays!"--she tossed her head +angrily. + +Joan hugged her. "I'd rather have you than all the fancy servants in the +world, and you know it. But I thought you preferred being an independent +modiste in lodgings. And then--you see, dear, I'm not quite sure whether +Archie can afford a servant." + +She had not so far been able to bring him down from the clouds long +enough to discuss ways and means. + +"Sho! He can afford _me_ all right. I'll save him money--And you don't +suppose he's going to let you spoil them white hands of yourn with +housework and cookin'? Not if I know Mr. Archie!..." + +The Misses Darcy were almost tearful with gratification, and received +Archie with the sort of romantic respect younger girls accord to heroes +of the matinee. + +"What did I prophesy?" cried Miss Virginia. "Only one season out, and +already--! Such a beautiful name too,--'Mrs. Archibald Blair.' Not a +Kentucky or Virginia one, of course. However, there _are_ other States, +Maryland, or South Carolina, or even Massachusetts. Where did you say +he was from, precious girl?" + +"Louisville." + +The sisters exchanged startled glances. "Louisville? But that's +impossible. We do not know his people!" + +"He hasn't any people." + +It was Miss Euphemia who recovered herself first. "So much the better," +she murmured. "I mean--Not that one would wish them to have died, of +course! But really, you know, in-laws--" + +"And so often I think a self-made man--" Miss Iphigenia took up the +parable. "So many of our Southern families seem to run largely to girls +nowadays. What I mean is, a little good red blood--" + +"Sister!" murmured two shocked voices. Everybody blushed. + +"I'm afraid Archie isn't even a self-made man, yet," smiled Joan, +mentally struggling to fill in the gaps. "I shall have to help make +him." + +"Ah, yes! A woman's touch, as dear papa used to say--" + +Joan reflected that the late Mr. Darcy must have known a good deal about +the power of a woman's touch.... + +Her friend Emily's congratulations were something on the same order, +though more frankly expressed. There was a wholesome attitude of +frankness always between the two girls. + +"I think it's dear of you, Joan," she exclaimed, "and so brave!" + +"Just why 'brave'?" + +Emily answered, despite embarrassment, "Why, to marry a man without +antecedents, without position, and without money, seems to me very +brave. I know I should never have the courage to do it, even if I cared +for him. In fact, I should be mighty careful not to care for him!--But +then I've never had your spirit of independence." + +"Perhaps because you've more to lose," said Joan quietly. "If either of +us is brave, I think it's poor Archie." + +She often thought of her lover so; tenderly, even lovingly, but as "Poor +Archie!..." + +Effie May was the only one of Joan's immediate environment who seemed to +look with any doubts upon a situation she herself had largely brought to +pass. + +"Look here, girlie," she said once abruptly. "You don't love that boy. +At least you ain't in love with him--and there's a difference. Why do +you do it, anyhow?" + +Joan, taken by surprise, was not immediately ready with her reply. + +"Is it because you want to get away from me?" asked the other. + +Still Joan was not ready to answer, and Effie May sighed. "You needn't +have gone so far as that," she said, "I'd have fixed it for you +somehow--I'm not going to forget what you've done for me, Joan. Not +telling, treating me just as if--it was all right. You're a bigger woman +than you know you are," she added, gravely. "I'll make it up to you some +day, see if I don't." + +Joan gave her a quick, straight look. "If you mean money, Effie May, and +I think you do, we'd better come to an understanding at once. I'm +keeping my counsel about--about your affairs; I'm helping you commit a +fraud, you know--entirely on my father's account. For myself--that's +another matter. I appreciate your kindness, I know you have meant to do +your best, but--" + +"But you're done with me?" finished the other. + +"Yes. I shall only see so much of you hereafter as is necessary to keep +Father from suspecting anything. As for your money,"--the girl's voice +shook--"neither I nor my husband will ever touch a cent of it under any +circumstances. Do you understand? We do not forget how it was--earned." + +The other sighed again. "Well, dearie, don't forget that it _was_ +earned, good and plenty!--And I've done you one good turn already," she +remarked _sotto voce_, as the girl turned away to greet her fiance. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + + +Joan and Archibald were married two weeks later, very quietly, before +only her family, resisting all the Major's importunities to make an +occasion of it. Nor would the girl accept a trousseau. + +"If I need any more clothes than I've got already, Archie will buy them +for me. Won't you, old boy?" she said, slipping her hand into his. + +Archie, with the happy consciousness of a rapidly growing business and +several years' savings in a Building Association replied proudly that he +would. + +One comment she had missed on her engagement; Stefan Nikolai's. She had +written to him at once (her first letter since his post-card advising a +preliminary course in matrimony), saying in effect, "Now I hope you're +satisfied!" But as no reply came, she reached the correct conclusion +that he was on the wing again, with her letter following him from +address to address, unread. + +Ten minutes after the little ceremony that left her no longer Joan +Darcy, a cablegram was brought to her from London. + +"Wait. Coming. Nikolai." + +To which she replied with reckless extravagance: + +"Too late. Sorry. Come anyway...." + +Alone at last with her husband in a carriage (to which the negro +yard-boy, feeling with the Major that something was lacking to the +occasion, had generously attached one of his own shoes), Joan asked +rather listlessly where he meant to take her. She had a conviction that +it would be to Atlantic City, or to Niagara Falls. + +For Archie was everything that was most correct in the way of +bridegrooms. His bulldog toes, his padded blue serge, his near-Panama +hat, his very socks, were so palpably bought for the occasion that Joan +felt that to match him she ought to be wearing dove-gray and a shrinking +manner. + +But she did not feel particularly shrinking; merely relieved that the +die was cast, and tired enough to be glad of the arm that stole +tentatively around her. + +"What train are we catching, dear?" she asked. + +"No train at all.--Oh, Joan," he said tremulously, "I hope you won't +mind! It's just for to-night--just a foolish idea of mine." + +"What is?" + +"Wait and see!" + +She waited rather apprehensively. She was a little nervous about +surprises, since her father's recent effort in that line. + +But the carriage was traversing a street she knew well, and it presently +stopped in front of the house where Ellen lived. There was still a tinge +of afterglow reflected in its many-paned windows, and among the young +feathery leafage of the old sycamore sparrows were preparing to go to +bed. Two or three of the denizens of the lower floors were taking a +breath of air on the doorstep. They stared at the carriage with +interest. + +"None of 'em know about us yet," reassured Archie in a whisper. "Just +bluff it out." Aloud he said to one of them (it was the lady who +expertly curled feathers): "Do you know whether Mrs. Neal is in, Mrs. +Higgs? We've come to see her." + +"I don't know as she is, Mr. Archie," replied the other, her eyes taking +avid note of Joan's smart tailor-made dress and traveling hat. "But I +know she's expectin' company all right, 'cause I been smellin' comp'ny +cookin' all day! Go right up and make yourselves to hum," she urged, +with the never-failing hospitality of her class. + +Archibald led his wife up the dim, curved stairway that had doubtless +known the reluctant feet of many another bride before her, and opened +Ellen's door with a key. + +"Yon _are_ honored," murmured Joan. "I didn't dream that Ellen had got +to the point of trusting gentlemen with her latch-key!" + +"Look!" said Archie proudly. + +The room was gay with flowers, truly a bridal bower; and in its center +stood the old round walnut table she had known all her life, much +battered by the kicking of her own youthful toes, set for two, and laden +with delicacies. There was a small but magnificent wedding-cake, there +was chicken-salad, crisp pink tongue, pickles, chocolates of Joan's +favorite brand, and resting in a pail of ice-water, its neck swathed in +a napkin, a bottle of champagne. + +"Cinnamon-rolls keeping hot in the warmer, butter in the ice-box +right-hand side, and I'm only to light the jet under the coffee-pot, and +leave it to bubble ten minutes--" murmured Archie, as one reciting a +well-conned lesson. + +Joan's listlessness suddenly disappeared. She hugged him. + +"What a perfectly _beautiful_ wedding-supper!" she cried. "Was it your +idea, or Ellen's?" + +"A sort of combination, I guess. She thought you might feel more +homelike here with your mother's things, and I--well, it's my home too, +you see!--So you don't mind?" + +"Mind!" she winked hard to keep the tears back. "Archie, let's have +pancakes, too!" she cried. + +They had pancakes. They also had eggs, in the scrambling of which +Archibald was quite expert. Afterwards they washed the pans and dishes +together, with two of Ellen's aprons tied around their necks, amid much +merriment. + +"I had no idea married life was so pleasant!" she sighed. "Archie, let's +always do our work like this, together!" + +"Work?" he picked up one of her hands and examined it reverently. Joan +had rather beautiful hands, sensitive and lithe, delicately white, with +rosy palms and finger-tips. "I'll let you play at work now and then," he +said soberly. "But work is for us men, my Joan, not for our women!" + +"It's fortunate the cooks and housemaids of the land don't agree with +you," she teased; "or perhaps they do, and hence the servant problem!" + +Later, they locked Ellen's door and put the key under the mat, and went +up a flight higher. Joan entered Archie's room with some curiosity. To +her, people's environment spoke a clear language; and sometimes she +realized, with a little shock, that she knew nothing at all of the man +she had married. + +It was a long, low attic chamber, whose ceiling sloped cosily down over +casement windows with wide sills. There was a fine fireplace, marred, +however, by a small stove showing evidences of occasional culinary +efforts. + +The results of Archie's twigging were very apparent; notably the +golden-oak rocking-chair, the "chiffoneer" surmounted by the bronze lady +with a spear. But she was more interested in the things which had +belonged to him. + +As Ellen had told her, the place was littered with books, shelves, +tables, and even window-sills. Joan examined these eagerly. There was a +very shabby Shakespeare in a good edition, an old pocket Emerson, a new +Rubaiyat, a brand-new "Alice in Wonderland" (which made her smile); but +it was no scholar's library. Archie's tastes were not what he would have +called "high-brow." The works of Marie Corelli and Conan Doyle +predominated, with several school geographies and histories, and various +treatises on the psychology of salesmanship. She found something rather +touching in this collection of books, remembering that he had referred +to it as his college career. + +She looked next for his pictures, those other sure indications of the +inner man. But there were none, except the small photograph of herself +in its elaborate frame, with a little vase attached holding fresh +flowers. + +"Archie!" she protested, laughing, "I look like a Madonna in a shrine!" + +"One of those namby-pamby parties with a dinner-plate behind her head? +Never saw one of them that could touch you!" he pronounced candidly. + +"I fear your correspondence-course has been neglecting Art," she +murmured. "There was a fellow named Botticelli who did some very neat +little things in that line. But come now, surely you've got some other +pictures hidden away somewhere? No naughty ballet-girls kicking up their +limb-legs? No bareback ladies? Or Parisiennes exhibiting wicked garters? +Honest Injun?" + +He grinned sheepishly. "I did have," he admitted. "But I sort of lost my +taste for 'em when you gave me that picture of you." + +She kissed him. + +"That's a prettier compliment than the little vase of flowers before my +picture, dear!..." + +Archie had been standing at the door, watching her progress around his +room with eyes that were almost incredulous. His room!--and she in +it!... He felt that if he opened a window she might flutter out again, +back into the world from which she came. Once, when he was very small, +he had found a belated autumn butterfly in the street, and brought it +home, and put it on a geranium-plant he had in the window, hoping it +might like to spend the winter there. But in the morning it lay dead +against the pane. Archie remembered that butterfly now, and shivered. +She saw him. + +She ensconced herself in the largest and shabbiest of his three chairs +and patted the arm of it invitingly. "Come over here, and let's really +talk!" she commanded. + +He obeyed. "What shall we talk about?" + +"Tell me about your mother," said Joan. + +He told her what he could remember. It was not much except a voice--a +soft English voice; and the feeling of arms that held him close; and +quite clearly the sound of sobbing beside his pillow whenever he woke +suddenly at night. + +"Nothing was ever heard from her after she left you here?" + +"Oh, yes. Money came once or twice to the landlady for my board--this +was a boarding-house, then. But after a few months it stopped coming." + +"And haven't you _any_ idea what became of her?" + +"She died, of course," said Archie simply. "Or she'd have come back for +me. There were people who thought--" he swallowed hard--"that she left +me here on purpose, and never meant to come back. That isn't so. I don't +know much about her, but I do know that she loved her child. You, can't +fool a kid about that!... And there were people who thought she killed +herself. But I don't somehow believe she was a quitter. What do _you_ +think?" + +He had taken a photograph out of his pocket, and handed it to Joan, who +studied it closely. Despite the unbecoming "fringe" and jersey of an +earlier day, it was a lovely face she saw, without a hint of folly or +weakness or worse. The chin was firm as Archie's, the features strong as +they were delicate. The face was still rounded and soft with youth, yet +out of it looked a pair of haunted eyes. + +"No, your mother was no coward," she said with conviction. "But she was +a very unhappy woman. And Archie--she was a lady!" The look of race +seemed to her unmistakable. + +He drew a great breath. "I think so, too," he said gladly, "I've always +thought so. That's how I dared--" Suddenly, passionately, he drew her up +into his arms. "Oh, my Joan, do you see why I wanted you here in my own +home? It's all the home I've ever had. Anything that's happened to me +has happened here. I've lain here at night trying to be a man when I was +nothing more than a kid. I've sat here listening, listening--Oh, for +years I used to think I heard my mother coming up the stairs to get me, +long after I was old enough to know she never would! And sometimes I +thought--Do you believe in ghosts?" + +"Yes!" said Joan. "Ghosts of people that love us and want to help--" + +"That's what I mean! And that's why I wanted to stay on in this room, +where--she could find me. It's a horrible thing not to belong anywhere, +nor to any one, like any little fyst dog in the streets. I've never said +this before--" + +"I know!" whispered Joan. + +"And now that I do belong to some one, I wanted my room to know it. I +wanted--in case there _were_ any ghosts--" + +"I know," whispered Joan again, her lips against his. + +There was a taste of salt on them, and she held him close and closer, +this great, lonely child who should never be lonely again. If, as she +had warned him, she was not capable of offering deep love, Joan could at +least offer deep understanding, which perhaps is rarer.... + +And presently as she held him so in the quiet of his old room, with the +house settling into drowsiness about them, and the sycamore tapping its +friendly signal on the roof close above their heads, Joan's identity +seemed to be slipping, merging, into that of some one else. She ceased +to be Joan the girl. She felt, in that strange moment of transition, +partly the wife, and partly the mother; but most of all the woman, whose +mission is to give. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + + +There is, among the wives and mothers of what the + +Misses Darcy were wont to call the polite world, a general conspiracy of +silence on the subject of honeymoons. The theory is allowed to go +unchallenged that a honeymoon is invariably a period of bliss and +romance unalloyed; the conspirators apparently subscribing to the ideas +of the stoical parent who teaches his child to swim by throwing him +unexpectedly into the water. If he manages to keep afloat, well and +good; if he drowns, regrettable; if he comes out alive but with a +shrinking cowardice with regard to water that never afterwards leaves +him, perhaps it is no concern of his parent's. And again, perhaps it is. + +Joan and Archibald Blair returned from their honeymoon not quite as +close friends as when they embarked upon it. Joan's manner had gained a +certain kindliness, a gentle consideration that was akin to sympathy; +whereas Archie, with puzzled eyes and a smile that beamed rather +uncertainly, almost evinced his desire to propitiate by rolling over at +her feet and holding up four paws to heaven. (Which was no way to +propitiate our heroine.) + +Honeymoons, however, do not last indefinitely; and by the time Ellen +Neal and her furniture and the results of Archie's "twigging" were moved +into a certain modest house that simply cried aloud to be purchased (on +the installment plan), Archie had grown almost accustomed to the sight +of the One and Only seated at his breakfast table _en negligee_, pouring +out his coffee, with a preoccupied word from him now and then as she +glanced through the morning paper. (It was characteristic of that +household that Joan was the one who read the morning paper.) He kissed +her whenever he liked without asking leave; and in return she rumpled up +his hair deliciously, and called him "Goose!", and reminded him to bring +oranges from downtown because the neighboring grocery had such poor +ones. + +Joan entered upon the domestic role with her usual thoroughness. + +At first she had been rather afraid of the expenditure the purchase of a +house involved. It sounded to her too much like the large and not very +practical ideas of her father. But when Archie pointed out to her that +even day laborers managed to own their cottages, thanks to +building-associations, and that purchase on this plan was merely a way +of saving money, she yielded without undue reluctance. After all, there +was not only his salary to be relied upon, but his commissions, +dependent upon his own energy, which seemed boundless. Like many poor +girls, she was quite ignorant of the value of money. Beyond the +purchasing power of a concrete sum, say one thousand dollars, money +meant nothing to her at all. Ten thousand dollars, twenty thousand +dollars--they seemed very much the same. + +The house was its own best advocate; one of the charming English cottage +types that are beginning to make home life not only comfortable but +dignified for the small householder in our American cities. The +neighborhood was excellent, one of the pretty green courts she had long +ago coveted; and there was a small garden artfully arranged into vistas +and quite an air of privacy by means of shrubbery, and overlooked by a +secluded porch whose coolness seemed like paradise to Archie, hurrying +to it out of the hot city. + +The garden was his part of the establishment; and there he might be +observed any morning shortly after sunrise, digging, pruning, whistling +tunelessly between his teeth, with one eye on a window whence would +presently issue the drowsy voice of Joan, calling, "Good-morning out +there, Adam!" Then with a rush Adam would disappear from his garden, +leaving spade or hose where he happened to drop them, lest Eve need +assistance with buttoning a blouse or tying a shoe. + +It was a glorious time for Archie. He was almost painfully happy. + +The Jabberwocks and others took a good deal of critical interest in +Joan's house. She had always been suspected of being a little odd, and +her house proved it indubitably. At a period when Louisville was +graduating out of the green-wall-and-mission-furniture period, through +Coloniality, into a more catholic appreciation of possessions which +express the personality of the possessor, Joan's house was still rather +a shock to all preconceived notions of decoration. There was none of the +white woodwork and panelled severity which sounded the correct and most +recent note. Joan's woodwork and walls were alike a soft, practical +gray--"Soot-color," she explained placidly--and the plaster had been +left rough-cast. Against it, instead of the accepted pictures of the +day, hung two or three rare prints, a cast of the Parthenon frieze, and +a fine strip of Persian embroidery. On the floor were black skin rugs. A +green vine, growing out of an ancient yellowed marble jar, wandered at +will across one wall and up the brick of the chimney-place. + +"You got that idea in Italy," commented one visitor. + +But the undoubted charm of Joan's house was that she had taken no ideas +from anywhere. She simply had about her the sort of things she liked. +There were ferns growing in the window-sills, and no curtains whatever +except two lengths of heavy pumpkin-colored silk which might be drawn +across the panes at will, but rarely were. + +"People will be able to see in when the lamps are lighted," protested +her step-mother. + +"What of it? They won't see much over those ferns," said Joan, "and I +always love to peep in at lighted windows myself, don't you? Haven't you +ever noticed how much nicer the houses in this part of the world look +when they're undressed for the summer? Personally, my taste has never +run to lingerie in household decoration." + +Effie May, who was nothing if not receptive, went home and meekly took +down her point-lace curtains. + +What troubled Louisville most about the Blair house was its lack of a +dining-room. There was no chamber held sacred to the rites of +nourishment, with chairs sitting primly against the wall and a center +table with a centerpiece upon it, bearing a fernery or--what was more +recently affected by the really up-to-date--a dish containing imitation +fruit. ("So much smarter than the real kind," explained her neighbor, +Mrs. Webster, who had quite a taste for the correct in art.) There was +no sideboard for the display of wedding-silver, no china-cabinet +containing the best glassware in glittering serried rows. What was the +use of having nice things, thought many a troubled housewife, if they +were to blush unseen in pantries? + +But Joan did not understand, and frankly said so, why in a small house +one room should be set aside for use only three times a day. She needed +the extra wall space for her books. Besides if there was a dining-room +people seemed to feel obliged always to eat in it, instead of in the +garden or the porch, or on a table drawn close to the window, where one +might look out into the world while one ate, as in a pleasant +restaurant. + +"I'm like the Irishman," she remarked, "who said that he was glad he +didn't like strawberries, because if he did he'd have to eat them, and +he hated the damn things.--Try having your meals served about in +different places, and see if you haven't a better appetite for them!" + +Even the admiring Jabberwocks felt that this was carrying oddity to the +extreme. They always took strangers, however, to see Joan's little +house, and incidentally Joan herself. Mr. Nikolai had sent her recently +several Mandarin costumes, unique in the history of Louisville for +domestic wear, in which she appeared comfortable, piquante, and quite +exotically feminine. + +"Fancy! Trousers on a bride! And at such a time, too," murmured the +ladies of the neighborhood among themselves. + +But as Effie May pointed out to the Major, himself a trifle shocked by +this eccentricity of costume in a lady of his family, "She's slim enough +to wear 'em, Dickie, and those full silk pants are certainly becoming to +the feet. Wish I had some myself--Don't you worry," she added, chuckling +over the Major's expression, "I haven't! Pantaloons weren't meant for +the pincushion style of figger." + +Archibald, of course, found the Mandarin costume adorable. He would have +found any costume of Joan's adorable, even a Mother Hubbard, or its +lineal descendant, the bungalow-apron. + +Altogether, Joan had a rather happy aftermath to her honeymoon. "The +pasture-time," she called it, during which she was as placid and content +as a cow in a clover-field. For the first and possibly the last time in +her life she was quite free from worry. That was one of the things +Archie took completely out of her hands. He would have liked to take +everything out of her hands that might be irksome to her--her thinking, +her very sleeping and eating, had it been possible. But worry at least +was something he could take upon his own broad shoulders. + +Her personal allowance and the allowance he made her for household +expenses were paid regularly into her account--an arrangement Joan had +insisted upon, despite his protest. + +"Why should you be bothered with the paying of bills, darlingest?" + +"But I _love_ to pay bills, Archie," she had replied, rather piteously +to one who had known anything of the earlier Darcy _menage_. "It's a +real pleasure to get them all out of the way before the tenth of the +month!" And it was a pleasure she attended to religiously, even after +she began to grow a little lax and indifferent about other household +matters. There were to be no "Indians" in the annals of the Blair +family. + +Joan had never been so sluggish mentally as in these first months of +married life; yet she felt almost abnormally normal, close to the great +heart of existence, at one with the physical world about her, content +with the content of a cog which fits well into the wheel where it +belongs. + +Long afterwards some would-be cynic asked her whether she believed that +marriage _per se_ was an experiment which paid. + +"Yes!" she answered without hesitation. "If only for the moment when you +tell your husband that he is to have a child." + + + + +CHAPTER XL + + +Her father took a satisfaction in Joan's house and husband and general +condition of modest prosperity which surprised and rather touched the +girl. It was as if he found in her well-being a justification of +something that needed justifying. "I may have my weaknesses," his manner +seemed to say, "but observe how well I have provided for my child!" + +He dropped in almost daily for his afternoon julep on the shaded porch +that overlooked her garden. Effie May had the tact rarely to accompany +him, and Joan found herself seeing more of her father than she ever had +under his own roof. + +"I don't know just what it is, my dear," he once said, musingly. +"Possibly the familiar furniture, or the presence of Ellen Neal (quite a +fair cook, Dollykins, though her manner leaves something to be desired). +But somehow in this little establishment of yours I always feel as +if--well, as if Mary were about somewhere." He sighed sentimentally. "I +feel as if she might at any moment sit down beside us and take out a bit +of sewing. She was rarely without sewing, you remember?" + +"I remember." Joan patted his hand, a demonstration rare with her. "I am +glad you feel that way, Father. Mother always does seem very close to +me--especially just now." An odd feeling of sorriness for her +step-mother came over Joan. "You are sure," she asked on an impulse, +"that Effie May does not object to your coming here so much without +her?" + +"Object? To my visiting my daughter under her own vine and figtree? It +would hardly be within her province to object," he commented regally. +"But, as it happens, she is the one who frequently suggests my visits. +She quite understands that under the--er, the happy circumstances--you +cannot come much to us, not caring naturally to appear any more often +than is necessary in public." The Major adhered rigorously to every +tenet of the old school. + +He had recently presented his daughter with a low, comfortable phaeton +of the sort which, as he explained, the gentlewomen of his day were +accustomed to drive; and Pegasus was learning to adapt herself demurely +to the role of a family horse. Joan found this phaeton a great +convenience for shopping and marketing and her rare visiting (she saw +very little of her friends that summer); and in the evening she and +Archie went for long drives about the parks, covering less ground than +they had covered in the ill-fated Lizzie, but making up for this by a +more intimate knowledge of what they passed. + +"It's good to go slowly enough now and then to see the wayside flowers, +and smell the fern, and hear the bird-calls, isn't it?" she said once as +they jogged along. + +"Sure it is! Now and then," replied Archie guardedly. A rising young +business man of the present time could hardly be expected to find +phaetoning an exhilarating means of locomotion. But "anything goes just +now," as he said to himself, happily. + +He was not able to take as many of these drives with her as he should +have liked. The cares of business were beginning to sit upon him with +increasing heaviness. "A man's business has got to grow with his +family," he was fond of saying, importantly; and Joan was left alone +sometimes, even on Saturday afternoons and after supper in the +evenings--those periods sacred in these our States to the uses of +domesticity. + +But she did not complain. She was even, secretly, a little glad, for she +had always enjoyed being alone. There were so many books to be read, +letters to be written, thoughts to be thought in which Archie, for all +his loyal efforts, could not quite share; and there was her music. One +of her step-mother's several wedding presents had been a small grand +piano, as companionable to Joan in this "pasture-time" as a dog is to +some women. + +Archibald, too, loved music. He frequently urged her to play and sing, +and was as proud of her rather indifferent performances as a _maestro_ +of a star-pupil. But he had an innocent, disconcerting habit of patting +time with his foot, or bursting into the air at unexpected moments in a +large, booming tenor that never by any accident quite found the key. +Music was one of the things Joan found herself unable to share with her +husband. + +She objected sometimes to his growing preoccupation with business, on +his own account. He began to look a little thin and fine-drawn; the +typical American husband, she told him reprovingly. + +"You're neglecting your exercise, Archie dear! You never go to the Y. M. +C. A., or play around with the boys any more." + +"Got something better to do," he beamed at her. + +"Goose! But it isn't good for a man never to have any fun at all. 'All +work and no play'--" + +He took her in his arms. "Fun! What do I want with fun?" he exclaimed +quite fiercely, lifting her face to his. But before their lips met, he +let her go. + +"No rough stuff," she heard him admonish himself under his breath. + +He kissed her hand instead.... + +The Darcys too, were spending rather a quiet summer. Now that they had +no debutante daughter in prospect, their names figured leas prominently +in the social column. With his growing avoirdupois, the Major appeared +to be abandoning the one-step in favor of the easy-chair, which was to +be found in greater perfection at home than at the Country Club. If his +bride regretted this lapse into settledness, she showed no signs of it. +Her avoirdupois, also, was getting rather out of hand, despite constant +attention to massage and sporadic attempts at dieting. + +"It ain't how _much_ I eat, seems like--it's _what_ I eat," she said +once plaintively to Joan. "Everything tasty turns to flesh on me; and +God knows, I hate a poor table!" + +But Joan realized that it was not entirely physical inhibitions which +were retiring the Darcys from the social arena. Her step-mother had +delicacy enough to understand that her place was not among Joan's +acquaintance, now that the girl had discovered her history. Joan liked +her the better for it. She was punctiliously careful to invite Effie May +to her house at frequent intervals, and always accepted such invitations +as the other offered in return. The Major, never observant, was quite +unaware that the relations between his wife and daughter had suffered +any change. As he once remarked impersonally, "You and my wife would +naturally find very little in common, excellent creature though she is. +Why should you, indeed? Your antecedents, your early environment, have +been entirely different. And as one grows older, those are the things +that really matter," he added, with a complacency that sat rather oddly +upon him in the circumstances--On the whole, Joan began to feel +distinctly sorry for her step-mother. + +The older people came sometimes to take her for long automobile drives +into the State; expeditions which Joan enjoyed thoroughly. Her father's +imperturbable good manners and Effie May's amiability made them +excellent traveling-companions, proof against all hazards of the road; +tire trouble, bad going, even delayed and poor meals. And they both +treated Joan with a new consideration, oddly wistful on the woman's +part, to which she responded gratefully. + +It shamed her somehow to see how kind the world was to her nowadays; as +if, in following the line of least resistance, she had done something +very commendable indeed. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + + +These long automobile rides familiarized her as nothing else could not +only with the State but with her father. She came to understand and +share his peculiar, proprietary interest in the lovely Kentucky +countryside. He pointed out to her its beauties of wood and hill and +pasture like the owner of some vast estate exhibiting it to visitors, +with a frank and pardonable pride. It is a habit of mind not unusual to +the native of certain localities--notably Virginia and Maryland and +Kentucky; but in her wandering, unimportant old father it seemed to Joan +a little piteous, as if he had sunk his small identity into that of his +great State, content to make its history his history, its glory his. + +"Here," he would say reverently, "is the spot where we made our final +victorious stand against the Indians. Sacred ground, my daughter!" +Or--"This is the place where our women went down to the spring for +water, risking their lives, bless their hearts! because the men could +not be spared from the defense of the stockade. You should thank God +that you are a Kentucky woman!" He sometimes forgot in his enthusiasm +that she had not been, so to speak, born to the purple--though that +fact, as he once explained to her, was merely an accident, due to a +certain miscalculation of dates. + +Joan came to realize in this new intimacy with her father that his +futility was owing in large part to circumstances over which he had no +control: notably the times in which he lived. He had been born a little +too late or perhaps a little too early. There is no need for men of his +type in the piping times of peace; but had his prime chanced to occur +during some convulsed period of the world's history, it is conceivable +that Richard Darcy might have rendered a great account of himself. He +was a born leader of men, with unfortunately little opportunity to +exercise his talent. During the only war that came within his range of +vision (our late unpleasantness with Spain), he had chanced to be +involved with certain trusting friends in a financial situation so acute +that the affairs of the nation had been obliged to stand aside until he +extricated himself; by which time, to his lasting regret, the war was +over. + +He had, of course, no right to his title. It had simply accrued to him +as titles often do accrue to men of his type, particularly in the South; +partly by inheritance, growing as he grew, beginning with a modest +lieutenancy in the State Guards, which had been his one and only taste +of the career for which he had been created. He never spoke of himself +as "Major"; but from the habit of years he had perhaps come to think of +himself so, accepting the unsought honor gracefully as he accepted +whatever else came his way, whether of good or evil. + +It is a pity that he could not have fallen asleep, say, at twenty, in +his clean, brave youth; and awakened in the month of August 1914, ready +for the day's work.... + +The Darcys and Joan were running home after a long trip in the Bluegrass +one evening, slipping along without lights in the glow of an October +aftermath, when at the turn of an unfrequented lane they came suddenly +upon a crowd of people collected about a bridge. The chauffeur brought +the car to an abrupt stop. It was at once surrounded by several men with +handkerchiefs tied over the lower parts of their faces. + +"What the devil--" cried Major Darcy. + +"Highwaymen!" gasped Joan. + +A man with a pistol in his hand said laconically, "No, we ain't +highwaymen, lady. We wasn't expectin' comp'ny, but sence you've come, +you'll hev to stay. Set right where you are and don't look. We'll be +through this job in a minute." + +"Nonsense! Let us pass at once," said the Major indignantly. "Drive on +over the bridge, James!" + +"Better not, James," drawled the laconic one. "We're usin' that bridge +ourselves just now." + +The chauffeur hesitated, walling his eyes in fright. Joan, who was +seated beside him, reached for the ignition switch to start the engine, +but turned on instead the lighting-switch. The sudden glare of the +headlights revealed some twenty or thirty roughly dressed men of the +farmer class, and in their midst, bound hand and foot with rope, a +cowering negro. + +"My God! It's a lynching," quavered Effie May. + +The Major had by this time collected his startled wits. + +With a sudden oath he jerked open the door and got out. + +"What are you up to here, men? Don't touch me, sir!"--this to one who +had laid a hand on his sleeve. + +There was a quality in her father's voice that sent a thrill through +Joan. She had never heard it before. The man removed his hand. + +"We're just stringin' up a nigger for the best of reasons," he +explained. "'Tain't no business of yourn, stranger." + +"I'll make it my business," said Richard Darcy sternly. "You're not +going to disgrace this State while _I_ am here!" + +The effect was histrionic; and yet Joan realized that her father was not +blustering. He meant it. + +There came a wail from beyond that made her shiver, the cry of a man in +mortal terror. "I ain't never done it, 'fore Gawd I ain't never tetched +that woman. Oh, Boss! O-o-oh, Boss!" It was like the cry of a damned +soul to God. "_Don'_ you let 'em git me!" + +There was an agony of hope in the appeal, as of one who sees at hand +unexpected deliverance. + +The Major responded to it, speaking in quiet reassurance as she had +sometimes heard him speak, years ago, when she had wakened out of some +nightmare in the little bed beside her parents'. + +"All right, boy. They shan't get you," + +He strode through the crowd, putting men out of his way right and left. +In sheer surprise they let him pass till he reached the negro, who +cringed to him, catching at his hand. + +Then a voice cried out, "Here, we're wastin' time. Muzzle the old boy!" + +The Major turned and stared magnificently in the direction of his voice, +nettled by the term "old boy." + +"Evidently," he remarked, "the gentleman does not know who I am!" + +Joan was seized with an hysterical desire to laugh. At such a moment the +bombast of it was too much. Suppose they should inquire +minstrel-fashion, "Well, then, Mr. Johnsing, who _are_ you?" + +But the crowd was not as used to her father as she was. They hesitated, +impressed by his hauteur, his fine clothes, the waiting limousine. They +stirred uneasily. A voice near her murmured, "Mebbe it's the Governor!" + +Richard Darcy took instant advantage of the impression he had created, +and began to speak. It was not the first time she had heard him make a +speech, for he was frequently called upon to aid some friend in turning +the tide of political battle. The Major, indeed, had rather a reputation +for assisting his friends into office--It was typical of Joan that she +listened critically despite her thumping heart; that she watched what +she could see of the faces about her, picked out by the lights of the +car; that she missed no expression on the gray, working features of the +negro, darting wild glances about him like a newly caged wolf she had +seen once at the Zoo, frantically eying the people who stood to stare at +it. + +Her father's voice poured out in a golden flood, running the gamut from +anger to gentle suasion. It was the voice of the natural orator, which +depends very little for its effect upon words. Once, passing a negro +church, Joan had heard just such a voice rising and falling within, and +though not a word of the sermon reached her, after a few moments she had +been almost ready to sway and moan with the congregation as it muttered, +"Yas, good Lawd!" "Be mussiful to us po' sinners" "Come, Jesus, come +down and take me home!" + +Some such effect began to be visible on the Major's audience. There were +stirrings and murmurings that suggested applause. He rose to them. The +eloquence that lies so close under the skin of Southern-born +men--certainly of all Southern-born men of Irish stock--came to the +surface and flowered. He showed this handful of rough farmers what it +should mean to them to be natives of so great and glorious a +commonwealth ("'Commonwealth'--what a splendid word, my friends!"); +wearing in her bosom all the riches of the earth, nourishing at that +bosom a race of supermen ("And superwomen, my friends! superwomen!"); +carrying in her womb the greatness of the country's future. + +"Statesmen we give to the world--law-makers, not lawbreakers! Soldiers +we give, not midnight marauders and assassins!" (If he borrowed freely +from a certain greater Kentucky orator who speaks only with his pen, the +Major was unaware of plagiarism.) "Show me the fools who say Kentuckians +are lawless? We make our laws as we need them, gentlemen--and we obey +them! Perhaps the greatest of our laws is this: 'Never kick a dog when +it is down.'" His voice sank to a warm and personal friendliness. "I ask +you, gentlemen--is there any dog more down than the negro? It is not his +fault that he is here where he is no longer wanted. It is not his fault +that he brought with him when he came the ways and the intelligence of +the jungle. It is ours, perhaps, that he has kept them. We shall never +tame the negro by proving ourselves savages!--My friends, you and I here +in Kentucky pride ourselves on breaking our horses and our dogs by means +of kindness. Shall we do less for our unfortunate black brother?" + +A voice in the crowd remarked, "_You_ can claim kin with him ef you want +to, Jedge--_I_ ain't!" + +A ripple of laughter greeted this sally, and Joan's tension relaxed. She +felt intuitively that a crowd which laughs does not kill. + +While he spoke, her father had more than once caught her eye over the +heads of the others, urgently, meaningly. Now he nodded to her. Joan +suddenly caught the message he was trying to convey. + +"He wants us to go to him. Quick, James! Start your engine. Quietly!" + +In his nervousness, however, the chauffeur started the car with a jerk, +and many faces moved in their direction. The Major turned on the full +tide of his voice, and rose to his climax. + +"My friends," he asked solemnly, "have you thought to take into your +hands the privilege of the Most High, who saith, 'Vengeance is mine'? +Perhaps you have called vengeance 'justice'? Even so there is a finer +thing than justice. There is mercy. And there is something we may give +even greater than mercy--something to which each of us poor souls has a +human right. I refer, gentlemen, to the benefit of the doubt. + +"Some day every one of us here present--who knows how soon?--must stand +before the Judgment Seat, cowering as this wretch is cowering now. And +what we dare to ask then will be perhaps not justice, nor even +mercy--but simply the benefit of the doubt." + +Tears came into Joan's eyes. It seemed to her that for a moment her +father had forgotten his purpose there, and was speaking not for another +but for himself.... + +His mind, however, had not left the business in hand. After a slight and +telling pause, he said in his ordinary conversational voice, "Now I am +going to take this negro with me, gentlemen, if you don't mind. I have +at hand a safe conveyance, as you see. I pledge you my word to deliver +him in person to the sheriff of this county." + +He beckoned to Joan. + +The spell was broken, and pandemonium reigned. "Look out--he's makin' a +get-away!" + +"Aw, what's the use? Leave him go!" + +"By God, it was _my sister_--" + +"Let me at him"-- + +"The gen'leman's right, I tell you!"-- + +And penetrating all a laconic drawl, "Stranger, leggo that nigger, and +leggo quick." + +Joan, on tiptoe, saw her father's head and beckoning hand above the +crowd. + +"Go on, James!" she said tensely. "Never mind if you run them down--" + +"Stop!" gasped Effie May. "Don't you see those pistols? They mean to +shoot!" + +The terrified James did not know which to obey. + +"Here, give me the wheel," ordered Joan. "Be quiet, Effie May!" Into her +mind came scornfully one of her father's sayings, "The canaille are +invariably timid." + +Effie May suddenly screamed again. "They're going to _shoot_!" + +And as if at a signal for which they had been waiting, two shots barked +out. + +The Major, still finely erect, thrust the negro behind him, and at the +same moment Joan sprang out of the car to go to his defense; two +instinctive acts which proved them father and child, and also proved +indubitably the Darcy right to pride of race. + +His steady voice reached her again as she struggled through the milling +crowd; "You poor fools, look to what your folly has already led you! +You've shot the wrong man. You've shot _me_!" + +There was a second of appalled silence. Then a man muttered "Golly!" and +turned and fled. His panic was contagious. One after another, by twos +and threes, the lynchers melted hastily away. When Joan reached her +father he was seated on the ground, leaning for support against the +bridge railing, alone except for the shackled negro. + +He still had command of the situation. "Take my penknife, Dollykins, and +set this boy free so that he can run," he ordered. + +Joan cut the ropes, sick with relief. He was so calm that she thought he +must have been bluffing the crowd. + +"Dad! Dad! You're not really hurt, then?" + +He smiled up at her. "Not hurt, my child. Killed," he said, dramatic to +the last.... + +The negro did not run. In return for his defender's heroism, he +performed a small act of heroism himself--not so small either, perhaps, +considering that his life depended upon what use he made of the next few +hours. + +"I'll tote him to de car, lady," he offered, pantingly; and delayed +further to give the paralyzed chauffeur instructions as to where to find +the nearest doctor. + +Joan sat on the floor of the limousine with her father's head in her +lap, only half aware of his labored, fluttering breath, of the blood +upon her dress, of her step-mother's wild pleadings with him just to +look at her, just to say one word to his Effie May, who loved him-- + +She was strangely exalted. Her mind seemed to have slipped into a region +of consciousness where things were made suddenly clear to her, troubling +questions answered, doubts set forever aside. + +"A gentleman," she kept repeating to herself. "A gentleman!" + +It seemed to her in that moment a great thing to have been born a +gentleman, even if one became nothing more; to know that whatever the +fortunes of life, one would be able to meet them gallantly and unafraid, +because of a something within stronger than personal will or habit: the +sum of the wills and habits of many ancestors. She was sorry for the +_canaille_, the Effie Mays, who had no such inner power to rely upon.... + +As they carried him into a doctor's office, Richard Darcy's eyes opened. +They passed the face of his frantic wife unseeing, and came to rest upon +Joan in some anxiety. + +"You all right, Dollykins? Must not allow--mere trifle like +this--upset--" + +"Nothing shall upset me, Father," she said, smiling at him. + +"Children so necessary--family traditions--" + +She bent close to him. "My son is going to be proud to carry on the +family traditions, dear." + +His face cleared. "Good girl!" There was a little bubbling breath. "I +promised Mary--" + +But Joan never learned what promise it was that he had made, and +doubtless broken, to his Mary. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + + +Joan herself, like other self-reliant people, sometimes made promises +which she was unable to keep. She had made such a one to her father. +Despite her best efforts, the fact and manner of his death did manage to +upset her, disastrously. + +The day came not long afterwards when for hours, years, they seemed to +her, Joan was aware of nothing but pain, and of the fact that miserable, +terrified Archie must somehow be got out of the way before she lost +control of herself. She thought that when she could get enough breath to +do it, she would ask him to go down town and bring her some ice-cream or +something; but when she did open her lips they emitted, entirely without +permission, a queer sound that was somewhere between a yelp and a croak. + +"Goodness! This is no way for a gentleman to behave," she said to +herself oddly; and must have spoken aloud, for the voice of Ellen Neal +responded. + +"There, there, my lamb! Yell all you want. You ain't no gentleman, thank +goodness! but just a poor little girl who's got a right to holler all +she likes. That's _one_ right the men-folks ain't going to deny us and +get away with it--not them!" + +Ellen as she spoke glared truculently at the doctor. It was not the +first accouchement at which she had assisted, and at such moments she +became feministic almost to the point of violence. Even Archie found it +safer to remain out of reach of her accusing eye. + +But long, very long afterwards, Ellen herself admitted him once more to +the Presence, for the sake of the burden he carried--a subdued, queerly +gentle Ellen, with all the acerbity gone from voice and manner, and in +its place something rather beautiful. It was motherhood that glowed in +her, had any one cared to notice; motherhood come by vicariously, as +Ellen Neal came by all the loveliness in life. + +"See, my lamb," she murmured, bending over the bed. "Open them pretty +eyes and look who's here! Come close, Mr. Archie, and show her the +present you've brought her. Quiet, now!--she ain't up to much. It's a +surprise, Joie. Open your eyes and look!" + +It was a surprise, indeed. Joan, by great effort, managed to focus her +gaze on Archie's burden. She shut her eyes quickly, and opened them +again. They were still there; not one, but two little wrinkled, fuzzy +heads. + +"Can you beat it?" demanded Archie, shakily, "Some little present, eh?" +He held them out to her. + +Joan's lips moved, twitching. "From a Friend," was what she said; and +Archie, recognizing a jest on sight, let out such a roar of joy that the +twins awoke with pin-prick wails, and a nurse came running, and he was +thrust once more into outer darkness. + +There a message was brought to him. "Your wife says why don't you +telegraph President Roosevelt about it?" + +And literal Archie did so.... + +But this was the last laughter heard in the house of Blair for many a +weary week. Twins require more strength for their bearing and rearing +than Joan, taken so unawares, was able to provide. The Major's final act +of gallantry cost a good deal in the way of human life, which may, or +may not, have been of more value than the life he saved. + +Afterwards, when she was able to think again, Joan sometimes wondered +whether his death was not perhaps an even more futile thing than his +life had been; yet she would not have had it otherwise. + +His widow had caused to be erected to his memory the finest granite +monolith obtainable for money, bearing the inscription, "Greater love +hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends"; +and Joan, after her first startled distaste for the grandiloquence +passed, was able to appreciate how deeply the memorial must gratify the +proud spirit of a Darcy, if it lingered near enough to know. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + + Through the dim corridors, the silent halls + Of Yesterday, the nuns move, whispering + Their rosary. Without, a robin calls + A drowsy blessing to his little mate, + For it is late, + And chapel aisles are filled with peace and prayer. + And Christ is there. + + Ah, dreams that haunt these keys of ivory--! + _Et verbum caro factum est_, they sing, + And lo! the years are as a day to me. + I kneel among the quiet ones again + To lay the pain, + The joy of life, where light and shadow meet + At Jesus' feet. + + +Some time earlier, during the period when girl-emotions translate +themselves into verse as naturally as bird-emotions translate themselves +into song, Joan had composed these lines, with the odd prescience that +frequently came to her when she "took her pen in hand." She had stepped +aside from a heated game of handball one day to jot them down; and her +play-fellows, evincing no particular surprise, had murmured to each +other, "Leave Joan alone. She's writing Poetry." For poetry is as much a +part of convent school-life as is handball. + +Now she was back among "the quiet ones" again, fulfilling her own +prophecy, come to lay her burden of pain and joy, if not at Jesus' feet, +at least in the safekeeping of his handmaidens. In her plain black +frock, such as convent girls wear, with her hair down in a braid and a +small apron tied about her waist, to protect her skirt from +embroidery-floss, the nuns found it hard to believe it was Joan Blair +who had come back to them out of the world, and not Joan Darcy. Only +this was a Joan who played harder than her younger self had ever played, +entering into the gaiety of the school, the basket-ball, the charades, +the skating-matches, the fancy-dress impromptus, with a feverish +eagerness which saddened the good ladies to see. Strange, vivid, +restless young creature--what she had learned of life in the short while +she had been away from them! Love, motherhood, and loss--the loss that +is saddest of all losses to women, be they wives or maids or +_religieuses_. While they in their silent corridors and hidden gardens +had listened to month after quiet month rung away by the bells, praying, +dreaming, working; tending the young life about them into blossom, +sometimes carrying with candles one of their number back to a still +place beyond the children's playground, sometimes--not often +now--receiving into their ranks one who had done with the world's ways +even before she came to know them. Truly "the quiet ones," blessed with +the peace of those who resign their wills to the will of God. + +Joan, gazing into their serene, pure, almost childlike faces, envied +them from her heart; but, being Joan, she asked herself wonderingly how +they could be so sure it was the will of God to which they resigned +themselves. Intelligent, fine-natured women, deliberately turning their +backs on life, deliberately closing eyes and ears to what went on in the +street just outside their cloister, lest it distract them from +contemplation of their immortal souls--Joan shook her head sharply; and +putting a veil over her hair, slipped into the chapel, where a voice +behind the cloister-screen was repeating the rosary of the Sacred Heart: + + "Oh, sacred heart of Jesus, burning with love for us, + Inflame our hearts with love for Thee." + +The beautiful voice rose and fell in almost passionate cadence, as if it +were pleading. It ceased abruptly; and another, older voice took up the +words, with mystic tenderness. There was a faint fragrance in the +place--indeed throughout the old building--of incense and dying roses, +which Joan always called to herself "the odor of sanctity." It came back +to her sometimes poignantly in the most unexpected places. + +A very old lay-sister, in a white coif and shoes that creaked a trifle, +pottered about among the statues of the saints, arranging small lamps +and vases of flowers, always dropping as she passed the altar a +business-like little curtsey. Now and then a child with a veil over her +head would slip in at the door, and genuflect, and sink to her knees for +a moment's prayer. Sunlight streamed in, multi-colored, through ruby and +purple and amber glass, across the white marble Christ who stood with +hands outstretched and head bowed, suffering little children to come +unto Him.... + +Joan, who had been reading Renan (a fact which would have certainly +caused her expulsion from that place had it been known), quoted to +herself: + + "In our bustling civilization, the memory of the life of + Galilee has been like the perfume of another world." + +It seemed to her one of the true miracles that it should indeed have +persisted through our bustling civilization, through persecution and +indifference, through crass hysterical religiosity, even to this day; if +only in such places as her convent school, and little country churches +here and there, and in the homes of the very poor. That lovely, +pastoral, gentle life of Galilee, exquisite as the name itself--who +could not have been good in Galilee? + +"If Archie had lived then, he would have followed Christ," thought Joan +suddenly. "Followed him, and fought for him, too. And he'd never have +let the Jews get hold of him!" + +It was the first time she had thought of her husband in many days.... + +Archie's letters came with faithful regularity, but he was one of the +personalities who do not carry well by letter. He informed her that he +missed her, but she was not to hurry home on his account; that Ellen was +keeping down the grocer-bill nicely; that the new man he had put on the +road wasn't doing well and he thought of putting Johnny Carmichael in +his place; that one of the water-pipes had burst and made a spot on the +wall, but nothing to fret about; and that if she needed more money be +sure to let him know. Or words to that effect. + +Archie, somehow, was never quite in the picture. She was better able to +reconstruct her lost girlhood without him. + +And Archie understood. It was he who had suggested the Convent when +Joan's doctor admitted himself dissatisfied with her condition, her slow +return to normality. + +"You've got a peculiarly sensitive nervous organism to deal with here," +the doctor said. "It takes very little to throw such natures off the +balance. You say she never speaks of her babies at all? I don't like +that! I'd rather have her crying about all over the place." + +"So would I," said poor Archie. "Then she'd cry on me, and I could +comfort her. Now I don't dare!" + +"I wouldn't," advised the doctor, frankly. "Better let her alone." + +So Archie, out of the wisdom of his love, wrote secretly to the nuns and +asked them to invite her to the Convent for awhile; and because of the +tragedy involved, the good ladies waived their rule of never permitting +married women to live in the community. They welcomed her casually, as +if her coming were no strange thing, gave her work to do, made her +useful running errands and taking the smaller girls about; for in a +religious community no one is ever idle. And Joan proved Archie's wisdom +by gradually losing her tenseness, her frantic clutching at amusement, +and growing daily in strength and poise until at last she was able to +enjoy again solitude and thought, two things of which she had for some +time been afraid. + +Indeed, Archie's experiment was almost too successful; for the simple, +orderly routine of the Convent was so soothing to her that she dreaded +the idea of leaving it. Days slipped into weeks; and still she postponed +the thought of going back to her empty house, to Effie May's +uncontrolled mourning, to that nursery which had been so happily +prepared for the little occupants who never occupied it. + +She was frightened sometimes to realize how utterly she seemed able to +forget her husband when he was not with her. If Archie was rather +frightened, too, he never admitted it, even to himself. After all, Joan +was his wife; and in his simple creed wives were bound to love their +husbands, else how could they remain wives? + +"She's had an awful shock," he reminded Ellen, who was growing restive. +"We've got to give her plenty of time to get over it." + +"Humph! and what about you? I suppose you ain't had a good deal of a +shock yourself?" muttered the old woman, savage with sympathy. "Wasn't +you bringing home toys and truck every day of the world, trains and +dolls and I don't know what all--and them not a week old yet? Your top +chiffoneer drawer's full of toys this minute." + +"Better give them away to the children in the neighborhood before she +sees them." + +"No such thing! I'll be savin' 'em for the next," said Ellen, +stoutly.... + +Oddly enough, Joan was presently restored to her husband and her duty +through the medium of no less a person than Eduard Desmond. + +She was chaperoning some of the younger girls in town one day, when she +met him on the street. She was surprised by the encounter, for she had +not known he was in Washington; and she bowed uncertainly, expecting him +to be a little embarrassed. + +But he stopped, and held out his hand with evident pleasure. "Mrs. +Blair! you?" he exclaimed. "What wonderful luck brings you to +Washington? and where are you stopping?" + +Joan briefly explained. + +"Then," he said with a notable accession of eagerness, "Mr. Blair is not +with you?" + +Some long-slumbering imp of malice awoke and stirred in Joan. His +expression as he looked her up and down was unmistakable. Evidently +matrimony had detracted nothing from her in his eyes. On the contrary. + +"No, Mr. Blair is not with me," she replied demurely. "I am on a +vacation. Why should one carry a husband about on a vacation?" + +This was Longmeadow language, the native tongue of Mr. Desmond. + +"Why, indeed?" he murmured. "And when am I to come to see you?" + +"I'm not sure you are to come at all. We're not allowed masculine +callers at the Convent, I think; are we, dear?" she asked the young girl +nearest to her. + +"Oh, yes, Mrs. Blair!--on Wednesday afternoons, if they're brothers or +cousins or anything like that," replied the child shyly. + +Eduard smiled. "I am not a cousin or a brother--fortunately--but perhaps +I may be called 'something like that!'--Next Wednesday afternoon, then?" + +"I'm not really sure that I shall be able to see you," she demurred. + +"I am!" replied Eduard calmly; and, lifting his hat, he passed on. + +He proved himself a true prophet. Joan could not deny herself the bitter +satisfaction of seeing at what a small fire she had managed so to scorch +her young wings. + +He had been waiting half an hour in the convent parlor when she came to +him, however; and half an hour in a convent parlor is an ordeal few +forget. It was a large, bleak room divided midway by a grille, on the +inner side of which sat a lay-sister, knitting. The other side was left +for the reception of male relatives and connections; and a tongue-tied, +uneasy lot they were, slipping about on the horsehair sofas, staring +furtively at the undecorative saints who adorned the walls, conducting +their conversation obviously with a view to the other side of the +grille. + +"For heaven's sake, get me out of this!" murmured Desmond as Joan +approached. "I feel as if the eye of God were on me constantly!" + +"It's only the eye of Sister Veronica," reassured Joan, "and more her +ear than her eye, I fancy." + +"You don't mean that she can hear what we are saying, in there?" + +"I've been told there's a sounding-board concealed about this room +somewhere. It may not be true, of course; but it's wonderful how much +does get back to the Convent from the parlor." + +Eduard shuddered. "There's goose-flesh up and down my spine! Do come out +for a walk somewhere." + +She shook her head, smiling. "Can't be done! But of course you haven't +anything to say to me that Sister Veronica shouldn't hear." + +"Haven't I, just?" he muttered. + +The imp of malice stirred in her again. She asked softly, "What, for +instance?" + +He gave her a quick look, glanced toward the grille, and plunged, albeit +in a very low voice. + +"For one thing I want to tell you how lovely you've grown!" + +"Louder, please?" said Joan, "I missed that." + +He repeated it, with additions. "And you need not pretend you did not +hear me, either, you witch. What's happened to you, Joan? I always knew +you'd be a wonderful creature some day, but already!--Those exquisite +shadows under the eyes, the hollow of your cheek, your lips--What I'd +give to paint you now, my dear! Only that it would waste our time +together. How much time have you, by the way? For me, I mean?" + +"You find me improved, then?" she enquired, demurely. + +"Improved! I find you--never mind what I find you! There's a subtlety, a +fascination--But I can't express it." + +"There must be a subtlety indeed if _you_ can't express it," she +commented; and added, "How is Mrs. Rossiter?" + +If she expected to disconcert him, she was disappointed. He informed her +at length as to the health, appearance, and conjugal felicity of Mrs. +Rossiter. + +"They're actually pulling it off," he said interestedly. "They're making +a go of it. I've always had the theory that once a divorcee always a +divorcee--the old-fashioned gentlewoman is more to my taste. Divorce +always seems to me so--so unnecessary--But in this case it appears I am +mistaken, and nobody is happier to admit it. They positively fancy each +other, Philemon and Baucis, all that sort of thing!--By the way, I had +no idea you had made such friends with May. You gave her my bracelet, it +seems. Cruel of you, Joan!" + +"Did it hurt your feelings?" she murmured, dimpling. + +"Oh, frightfully. How did you have the heart? She positively gloated +over me." + +"Father would never have allowed me to accept anything so handsome from +a passing acquaintance. One had to do something with it, you see, so--" + +"Passing acquaintance!" he interrupted, reproachfully. "Surely I was +more to you than that? Our evening under the beech-tree--shall I ever +forget it?" + +Joan, paling a little, remarked, "Sister Veronica appears interested." + +"Damn!" muttered Eduard, and shortly took his leave. But first he gave +her a note from Mrs. Desmond urging her to dine with them on any evening +she cared to name. + + "Betty is abroad," wrote Mrs. Desmond, "and I know you have no + heart for gaieties just now, so there will be only the four of + us, a family party." + +Joan hesitated. + +"Of course we all realize that you are not in a mood for gaiety," said +Eduard with a sympathetic glance at her black. "But I _must_ see you +somehow!--and among old friends, who understand--" + +To ward off any mention of things that hurt, she hastily agreed to dine +with the Desmonds on the following Saturday. + +Sister Veronica, (who happened to be quite deaf) wondered what could +have occurred to give the poor child such an expression of--not exactly +pleasure. It was more like triumph. She would have made no sense of what +Joan was muttering under her breath, Salome-wise, as she left the +parlor: "Off with his head! Oh, off with his head, _and step on it_!" + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + + +Not only the older girls, but more than one of the nuns, made some +excuse to come into Joan's little room when she was dressing that +Saturday evening. The rumor had gone forth that their charge was +beginning to take interest in worldly affairs again, and the good ladies +congratulated each other. While they themselves had forsworn the +pleasures of the world, they were quite aware that for some these had +their uses, if only as an anodyne. They took, too, a quite feminine +pleasure in Joan's frock, a simple black chiffon with transparent +sleeves, which she had cut out a little at the neck to make it suitable +for the evening. + +"I suppose," said the Reverend Mother, making her turn round and round +for inspection, "that this is what they call in the world a decollete +basque, is it not? And very becoming, too! Only"--she added with the +frank conventual innocence that occasionally startled Joan, "does not +such a display of the person tend to encourage lust of the eye, my +child?" + +Joan laughed a little. "Let us hope so, Mother!" she murmured. "We +strive to please"--a remark which the old lady trusted that she had +misunderstood. + +Her striving on that occasion was by no means in vain. There seems +something peculiarly alluring to the masculine taste (as women of the +oldest profession in the world are quite aware) about black. Joan, with +nothing to relieve her somberness except a cluster of white gardenias at +her breast, would have held the gaze of any man who saw her as surely as +she held that of Eduard and of Betty's father, who had hitherto not +known his daughter's friend and openly regretted his missed opportunity. +She was one of the women whom motherhood, even denied and thwarted +motherhood, gives a momentary poignant beauty, of the sort that Leonardo +loved to paint. Betty's father was indeed so regretful of his missed +opportunity that it was with some difficulty Eduard secured the +tete-a-tete upon which he had counted. + +"At last!" he sighed when he had finally manoeuvered her into the +conservatory to admire orchids. "I began to think this was going to be +another wasted hour, like my ghastly experience of the monastic +life.--Do you realize, my dear, that I am entitled to a little praise +and comforting on your part?" + +"Just why?" + +"Why? Why, because of the discretion, the magnanimity, in fact the utter +damn-fool quixotism of my late conduct! At Longmeadow, you know. Leaving +you--when I might have stayed!" + +Joan was rather startled. She had not expected him to carry the war into +the enemy's country to such an extent as this. + +"That makes twice," he murmured, leaning over her, "that I've let you go +unscathed, my dear. When you left school--and when you came back to me. +But--Fate is too strong for us. You're not expecting me, I hope, to let +you go a third time?" + +"In just about five minutes," she smiled, glancing at her wristwatch. +"I've ordered my taxi for ten o'clock." + +He gave a little exclamation, and caught her hand. "Don't pretend to be +so cool and indifferent, you witch! I know you better than that. +You--cool and indifferent! Have I forgotten that night under the +beech-tree? Have you?" + +Joan suddenly blazed out at him, white with anger. "No! I've not +forgotten that. Nor afterwards." + +"Afterwards?" + +"Will you be good enough to tell me in plain language what was your idea +in running away?" + +He eyed her appreciatively. He liked a touch of temper in a woman. It +gave them a zest your amiable creatures lack. + +"Why, Beautiful, what else as a man of honor could I do? A thing like +that doesn't stand still, you know! The flare dies out--or it goes +further. Our flare would not have died out." + +Her lip curled. "And as 'a man of honor' it never occurred to you that +we might preserve our flare, as it were, in marriage?" + +He sighed ruefully. "Oh, yes, it did! That temptation, too, I had to +fight. For you see, my dear, I don't believe in marriage. I've seen too +much of it (vicariously). Believe me, it preserves no flares! It +quenches them. The thing's as fatal as death--though not, thank God, as +inevitable! I will not put a relation I value to a test it will not +bear," he explained, evidently in earnest. "What!--tie a creature of +spirit and fire like yourself to the duty of forever loving one man, +obeying one man, giving yourself into his hands to break at his leisure? +Can you think of any surer way of killing love than to make a duty of +it? 'Duty'--the most hideous, cold, Puritanical word in our hideous, +cold, Puritanical language! The French put it better. _Devoir_ suggests +something that is by no means cold. Therefore, dearest girl"--he kissed +her hands--"let me pay you my _devoirs_ always, and be sure that I shall +never trouble you with anything so unpleasant as a 'duty.'--Why, suppose +I had taken you then, bound you hand and foot to me by law--think how +bored we should be with each other already! It would be from me you +would be taking a vacation, instead of from the unfortunate Blair." +(Joan winced.) "As it is--" + +"Well?" she prompted, veiling her eyes. "As it is--Eduard?" + +He drew her toward him with little inarticulate murmurs. She took a +fleeting glance at the face approaching hers. It was flushed, the eyes a +trifle glazed as if he had been drinking. He breathed hard. + +"How unbecoming it is to them!" she thought, but without resisting. (The +reader who happens to like Joan would do well to skip this paragraph. It +is not our heroine at her best.) + +"As it is," said Eduard rather hoarsely, "we have each other for all +time, my Beautiful! Nothing to bind us, nothing to hold us, except our +sacred--er--" + +"Flare?" prompted Joan, helpfully. + +But he was not paying his usual attention to words just then. He lifted +her face to his, and closed his eyes the better to savor what was +coming.... + +An unexpected sound caused him to open them again. It was laughter, +issuing from the very lips he was about to enjoy; not hysterical, +nervous laughter such as might have been pardoned under the +circumstances, but cool and sweet, and unimpassioned as the tinkling of +ice in a pitcher. + +"You're not really trying to warm it up and serve it over again?" +protested Joan, as she extricated herself from his embrace. "How absurd! +I thought you were too much of an artist for that. And at your age, +too!" + +She sauntered back to the others, still laughing over her shoulder. He +did not follow. + +Which may be said to have been the end of Eduard Desmond, so far as this +chronicle is concerned.... + +But it was also the end of what Joan had disloyally spoken of to him as +her vacation. The word stuck in her memory, and she was ashamed of it. +Her heart yearned toward Archie. + +The nuns bade her a delighted farewell; and all the way home she made +amends for her long neglect of him by thinking of her husband +constantly. By contrast with Eduard's smooth hair, his slim hands, and +well-modulated, expressive voice, Archie appeared to her the very +epitome of manliness. She idealized his defects into beauties, big ears, +clumsiness, and all. She remembered with a thrill how easily he carried +her upstairs when she was tired, how he went tiptoeing squeakily about +the house in the morning for fear of waking her, whispering in tones +that would have roused the dead--Blessed, funny old Archie! She could +hardly wait for the sight of him. + +Yet when she did see him, through the car-window, watching the platform +for her appearance as tensely as a terrier watches a rathole, Joan +shrank back with a faint gasp. He was looking quite appallingly dapper, +with shiny new shoes and a Derby hat--an article of wear not designed +for people with badly adjusted ears; and his mouth hung slightly open in +his eagerness, showing the infantile front teeth, through which issued +(she could almost hear it) a sort of a tuneful hissing, as was his way +in moments of emotion, just to show that he was not nervous or excited +in the least. + +Joan shrank back, the last person to leave the train. And as she passed +a mirror, catching a glimpse of her pale face within it she whispered +piteously, "Oh, Joan Darcy, what have you done?" + + + + +CHAPTER XLV + + +For the modern woman there lies, fortunately, a life between the two +extremes of domesticity and frivolity, both of which Joan had tried and +found wanting. Or rather she had not found domesticity wanting so much +as temporary--a period of tranquil suspense, as it were, leading up to +an inevitable climax which had somehow failed to come off. Even had her +babies lived, it is to be doubted whether Joan could have long satisfied +herself with domesticity pure and simple; and she could no more resume +it now than a cocoon may be resumed by a former occupant which has +sprouted wings. + +As for frivolity, plenty of that offered itself to a young matron with a +charming house and a husband who was generally spoken of as a rising +young business man. ("Rising," Archie certainly was; he had to be, to +keep up with his rising expenditures.) + +But Joan asked perhaps too much of frivolity. She had been heard to +remark that "nothing made the social game possible except flirtation and +real talk; neither of which were to be had in Louisville by people who +valued their reputations"; a rather sweeping comment, of the sort which +soon made Joan's tongue a trifle over-famous. Simple, unexacting folk +who liked a good dinner with a game of cards afterwards for modest +stakes, and now and then a little dancing with each other's spouses, +just to keep in touch with the new steps, began to be rather afraid of +young Mrs. Blair. And Joan was equally afraid of them. She had a morbid +suspicion that dullness might be catching. + +There was something appalling to her, too, in what has been somewhere +called "the infinite littleness of social life." It seemed to have a +strangely flattening effect upon its devotees--promoting some, demoting +others, all to the same unstimulating level, while the wheels within +wheels shifted and reformed kaleidoscopically. These wheels within these +wheels puzzled Joan. "Climbers," such as her step-mother, she was able +to understand and even to sympathize with. It seemed to her quite +natural and thoroughly American for water to seek a higher level than +its own. That was merely progress, merely self-respect made visible. To +"get on" appeared a quite legitimate ambition; but to "get in"--that was +another matter. Snobbery, that word of many interpretations, meant to +Joan the extreme form of self-confessed vulgarity. + +"If it were friends they were after, I could understand," she said to +Emily Carmichael. "Everybody wants friends--we're all lonely. But you +have got to select your real friends one at a time, not in assorted +clumps, like bananas. And one's real friends so rarely happen to be +friends with each other--you've noticed that? Why this passion for +organizing ourselves into group-formation, anyway?" + +"For purposes of offense and defense," explained Emily. "So that we may +leave the Mrs. Websters out, and let the Joan Darcys in, of course." + +They had been discussing Joan's near neighbor, a well-bred, +sweet-mannered, adaptable young woman who had recently laid siege to the +town, and with whom Joan was forming one of those propinquity +friendships which are destined not to last. None of Mrs. Webster's +friendships appeared to last. She had used acquaintance after +acquaintance gracefully as a stepping-stone to higher things, leaving, +however, not a single enemy behind her. It was the fashion in the +various circles through which she had passed to say how charming Mrs. +Webster was, even after she seemed done with them. And now, through +Joan, she was laying tactful but so far unsuccessful siege to the +Jabberwocks; cleverness (in moderation) having become quite the smart +thing nowadays. + +"It is not our massive intellects which attract her, however," commented +Emily. "It is--well, modesty forbids me to say just what it is. The sign +_verboten_ is to some natures as a red rag to a bull. They simply must +have it to play with." + +"Well, but why should anybody be _verboten_ to Kathy Webster?" defended +Joan. "She's charming, and perfectly intelligent, and unmistakably a +lady--which is more than one can say with confidence of some of our most +indefatigable social leaders. Look at Mrs. Gunther, for +instance!--didn't you tell me her father used to deliver meat at your +door out of his own cart?" + +"Excellent meat it was, too. Father says we have never had a decent +butcher since." + +"And lo, what house more exclusive than theirs?" + +"Naturally! It has to be. People like that seem to develop a sort of +protective instinct which guards them from any possible contact with +vulgarity until such time as they shall have accumulated enough +refinement to be immune. Not for them the company of any chance newcomer +like Mrs. Webster! They have to be careful." + +"But shouldn't you think they'd have a sort of fellow-feeling for the +new arrivals?" + +"Dear me, no! What's the good of attaining a pinnacle if you're going to +share it with somebody who might push you off?" + +Mrs. Webster's pursuit of Joan was not entirely opportunism. There was a +good deal of admiration in it, mixed with a sort of malice which the +larger nature had difficulty in comprehending. Joan found herself +entered most unwillingly into an undignified petty rivalry with her +neighbor. If she entertained some of her friends at luncheon without +Mrs. Webster, the other instantly retaliated by giving a luncheon +herself without Joan, sending in dessert and decorations afterwards to +press home the point. If the Blair house in Spring put out new awnings, +the Webster house erupted not only into awnings but into flower-boxes as +well, with a corresponding air of triumph in its mistress. If Joan +received some invitation which the other did not, there arose between +them a slight, unmistakable coolness; whereas, if the contrary occurred, +Mrs. Webster became modest and cordial again. + +Yet when this unpleasant rivalry lay dormant, the two had many a +friendly, neighborly time together over their sewing and their +gardening; and once when Joan was taken suddenly ill the other showed +herself genuinely kind, quick with womanly help and sympathy. + +Joan could never quite make up her mind whether it was the pettiness of +Society which makes the Mrs. Websters, or the Mrs. Websters who make the +pettiness of Society. In any case, she lost what little taste she had +for a purely social career. It was not good enough. + +And so she turned the pent-up energies of her nature into those +activities which are summed up nowadays under the general title of +Clubwork. Investigations, commissions, agitations of all sorts came in +for their share of her attention. She soon created for herself quite a +following of less daring spirits, among them Emily Carmichael and others +of the Jabberwock group who had graduated from the cocoon. It became +known that whenever young Mrs. Blair undertook a thing, it went with a +rush, not so much through her own efforts as through those of her +henchmen. She was recognized in club circles, despite her youth, as +something more valuable than a mere worker; she was an executive--All of +which fed her vanity and her sense of usefulness; and left somewhere +within her an aching void of dissatisfaction. + +Suffrage-work came nearer filling this void than had anything else, and +that, it must be confessed, for a rather ignoble reason. It gave her a +chance to make speeches. In the back of her mind, with the very real +conviction that the ballot is a necessity which women are unjustly +denied, lurked also the suspicion that the world is already aware of the +fact without any further need of agitation. Nevertheless she continued +to agitate, because she liked to exercise an ability which otherwise +might have remained forever undiscovered--There is no pleasure in life +equal to that of employing skillfully the talents that have been given +us. + +She made the discovery of her gift quite by accident. At some woman's +meeting, a lady who was to have spoken on the subject of the Federal +Amendment failed to appear, and Joan, who had recently read up on the +matter (it may be remembered that she was what the actors call "quick +study"), volunteered to take her place, meaning simply to give the gist +of the matter and thus relieve a harassed chairman. But when she found +herself on the platform facing interested and expectant faces, something +happened that had occasionally happened before when she "play-acted" for +the girls at school. Joan left herself, and became a part of the +audience. + +She listened to her voice going on and on, with amused approval. It was +a voice rather like her father's, carrying and flexible, and peculiarly +rich in its intonations. + +"It doesn't really matter much what I say," thought Joan, listening to +herself; "it's how I say it. If I drop my voice a note here, they ought +to frown." (They did.) "Now I'll have them smile a little, perhaps +chuckle. After I stop, no applause, I think--just a nice, thoughtful +silence." (All of which came faithfully to pass.) + +When she stepped down from that platform, her reputation as a public +speaker was made. Thereafter she delivered speeches whenever and +wherever she was asked, to the incredulous delight of Archie. + +"Say, come over and hear the wife do her little spiel to-night!" he +would urge upon all his acquaintance. "It's a treat!--stands right up +and hands it to 'em hot off the reel, without a note or anything. You +can see her little old brain workin' while she talks--and lookin' pretty +as a picture all the time!" + +His pride in her was such that he presented her with a successor to +Lizzie, a more pretentious member of the Lizzie family, in fact, in +which to get about to her numerous committee meetings. + +"Of course we can afford it," he said in answer to her demur. "Haven't +all your friends got automobiles? Well, then!" + +Joan accomplished much in the way of by-product to this satisfaction of +her vanity. Her youthful charm and her good breeding got her a hearing +frequently where more strenuous representatives of the cause had failed; +and through her many hitherto uncertain lambs were gathered safely into +the fold. On one occasion, to her astonishment, Joan discovered the +three Misses Darcy in her audience, wearing expressions of shrinking +alarm. But if they had come--not to scoff, they were too polite for +that: let us say to deprecate,--they remained to join. + +"I declare it's _shameful_ the way we women have been treated all this +time!" cried Miss Iphigenia afterwards, truculently signing the card +which made of her a suffragette. "I'd no idea! Not allowed a word in +edgewise, the gentlemen spending all the money and making all the laws, +ordering us about like we were so many white slaves--" + +"I don't recall that darling mama was ever treated in just that way by +dear papa?" interjected Miss Virginia, uncertainly. + +"Pooh! Exceptions," snorted Miss Iphigenia (if one so gentle could be +said to snort). "Exceptions can be made to prove anything, can't they, +Joan? Why, we haven't even had a say-so as to whether we should marry or +not. Simply had to sit back and say 'Thank you, sir!' to any gentleman +who was kind enough to ask us!" + +Here Miss Virginia was able thoroughly to concur. "And if nobody _was_ +kind enough to ask us--Oh, my dears, I begin to think that if we could +have had the ballot in time--!" + +"What's more," cried Miss Iphigenia, inspired, "I mean to bring our Susy +to hear you the next time you make a speech, Joan. Yes, I do! If they +try to keep her out, we shall say she is there as our maid. If we are +all to be allowed to vote about things, colored and white alike, it's +time for the colored women to be taught how!"--Which Joan justly +regarded as a signal victory. + +But at the same time she chuckled inwardly over the mental vision of an +audience of colored lady voters, swaying to and fro with occasional +unctuous shouts of, "Bress us, dat's so! Um, yas, my Lawd! Come down, +come down and gadder us sinners into de fold!" + +Occasionally, in the pursuance of her various public successes, Joan was +thrown into contact with people whom she classified under the heading of +Intelligentzia. There were plenty of these in Louisville, thinkers and +students and writers, a growing number of names which were rather better +known away from the city than in it. But of these Joan fought a little +shy. She cared more for books than for the making of them, had no wish +to peep behind the scenes for fear of losing her illusions. She got the +impression, too, that professional thinkers and writers were so busy +observing and interpreting the life about them as to have somehow lost +human touch with it. And Joan was nothing if not a humanist. She had a +youthful horror of being classified among the _bas bleux_. + +"Men do so hate a bluestocking," she said once pensively to her friend +Emily. + +"Men? Well, what of that? Yours doesn't!--and you don't want anybody +else's men, do you?" + +"None that I have seen so far," admitted Joan. "But you never can tell. +They say it's in the dangerous thirties that we really begin to sit up +and take notice--Anyway, I shall _never_ be married and settled enough +to relish the idea of men running away from me as if I were something +catching!" + +So she continued to avoid, rather than to cultivate, the company of the +Intelligentzia, thereby denying herself her birthright. + +And at twenty-five, a leading citizeness of her community, with +engagements so thick on her calendar that there was barely time for an +occasional meal at home, she woke every morning with the thought, "If +something doesn't happen to-day, I shall scream!" + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI + + +At that stage of life, something usually does happen.... + +Joan, coming home from a late committee-meeting one afternoon, realized +with a sort of pang, as she turned into the court where she lived, that +Indian summer had come and almost gone without her being aware of it. +The golden rain of leaves falling about her, the oddly wistful smell of +autumn smoke in the air, gave her a twinge of something like +homesickness; of sorrow because so many such evenings had come and gone +unnoticed. Words of Fiona McLeod came to her mind. + + "We are a perishing clan among the sons of God, because of the + slow waning of our joy, of our passionate delight, in the + Beauty of the World." + +"How _can_ one enjoy the Beauty of the World alone?" asked Joan suddenly +of herself.... + +Through the windows of some near-by house came a man's voice singing a +little Russian lullaby that she had not heard in many years. Her mother +had once made an English version of it: + + "Hush, my dear one, hush, my baby, + (Byushky, byu), + Smiles the moon upon thy cradle, + Smiles thy mother, too. + + "Cossack art thou in thy dreaming,-- + (Byushky, byu). + Blood and tears and fear and glory + Shall I know through you. + + "But to-night thou art my small one, + (Byushky, byu), + With the moon to bless thy slumber, + And thy mother, too." + +Joan walked slowly and listened. For all the simplicity of the air and +accompaniment, it was an artist who sang, and he sang in Russian. + +She was hungry for music. It was one of the things she had deliberately +done without of late, pronouncing it to herself for some odd reason "not +safe." She thought the voice came from the house of a neighbor who +occasionally entertained musicians--But she was mistaken. It came from +her own house. + +She opened her door, and stood there staring into the twilit room, her +slim grace outlined against the golden rain of falling leaves outside. +Stefan Nikolai gazed at her over the top of the piano with a quiet smile +of welcome, and finished his song. Joan burst into tears. + +Had Archie been there, he would have rushed to the rescue, comforting, +exclaiming, asking questions; and these methods failing, he would have +called anxiously upon Ellen and the bottle of valerian. + +But Archie was not there.... Nikolai went on playing softly, until the +tears had spent themselves. Then he said as if they had parted +yesterday: "I came to see why you no longer write to me, my dear. Is it +because you are too happy?" + +Joan began feverishly to light lamps and candles. "You must think me a +f-fool, Stefan!" She was dabbing at her eyes. "It's just--Mother used to +sing that song, you know." + +"I know. She learned it from me when you were very little--One is never +a fool to weep, Joan. It is only the fools who do not weep." + +"Now," she cried, turning in the lamplight. "Stand there and let me look +at you!" + +He stood where she bade him, a slim, erect, very distinguished figure in +foreign-cut clothes, with a rather Mephistophelian close clipped beard, +and singularly black eyes, eloquent in an otherwise impassive face. They +met her gaze now so tenderly, so caressingly, that something seemed to +melt in her heart which had long been pent there. She held out both +hands. + +"Ob, Stefan, Stefan! I am so glad!--And how handsome you are! I had +forgotten that." + +He laughed a little, and bent over her hands, kissing them lightly. + +"Why, you've never been so formal as that before!" + +"You have never been a grown-up married woman before." + +"I see! You mean that we've become the same age now?" She looked at him +more closely. "And we have! Why, Stefan, you're nothing like as old as I +used to think you!" + +"I never have been," he smiled. "I rather fancied you might discover +that fact some day. But--you wouldn't wait, my dear." He turned to some +packages on the top of the piano. "Have you become too grown-up and +married to like presents?" + +The brief moment of awkwardness passed before Joan was quite sure it had +been there. She clapped her hands. "Presents--for me? Oh, and for Ellen +Neal, and even for Archie, whom you don't know! Stefan, how dear of +you!" + +"Your people are my people," he said. "Also, I wish to propitiate them +into allowing me the freedom of your company, you see." + +"Then you're going to stay for some time?" she cried, delightedly. + +"As long as I am allowed to--'Home is the sailor, home from sea, and the +hunter home from the hill'--" + +"Till he begins to feel an itching in his wanderfoot again," said Joan, +making a little face at him. "I know you!" + +At that moment Ellen came in to light the lamps. "Oh, you've come, Miss +Joan, have you? I thought it was about time! Mr. Archie'll be home +before long," she said primly, and was about to withdraw when Joan cried +to her, "Nellen, have you seen Mr. Nikolai?" + +"Sure I have. How else did you s'pose he got into the house? I'm puttin' +a place on the supper-table for him," she replied, tossing her head. + +With years Ellen's temper did not become less difficult; but Joan was at +a loss to account for its present manifestation. + +"Of course you are," she murmured soothingly. "But I don't believe +you've seen the lovely present he's brought you all the way +from--Shanghai, is it, this time?" + +Ellen drew near, fascinated by the shimmering length of purple crepe. +"Silk! For me? Shucks, what would I be doin' with stuff like that? It's +much too fine for the likes of me!" + +"Nothing is too fine for the likes of you," replied Nikolai, with quiet +sincerity. + +"Why, you'll be perfectly grand in it, Nellen, with the Battenberg +collar and cuffs!" + +She muttered, mollified, "I don't know as a single woman ought to accept +such things off a gentleman." + +"It's all right if her chaperon says she may," reassured Joan, keeping a +straight face. + +But when the old woman had gone, she said to her friend, "I'm ashamed of +her, Stefan! I can't think what gets into her cranky old head!" + +"It is always so at first. I have to win her confidence afresh each +time. I think the faithful soul regards me as a wolf menacing the safety +of her sheepfold." + +"That's because you are what she calls a 'for'ner.'" + +"It's because I am a Jew. Few really practising Christians can find it +in their hearts to trust a Jew." + +"But you're only half a Jew!" + +"You might as well say 'only half a negro,'" he remarked without +bitterness. "It is the blood that counts, not the amount of it...." + +He had brought her the gray sapphires he once promised her, a long +string of them with pearls between, and a tassel of pearls at either +end. + +She exclaimed with pleasure, "What an exquisite jewel!" (She had learned +more about such things than in the days when she secretly scorned her +aquamarine because it was not set in diamonds.) "How the pearls bring +out the color of the stones, and how wonderfully they match, Stefan!" + +"Do they?" He looked critically from the stones to her eyes. "Yes, they +are darker now than the aquamarine. Shadows have come into them--The +sapphires are better." + +She patted his hand. "It _is_ so nice to have somebody about again who +notices whether I have eyes or not!" + +"Surely your Archibald notices?" + +"If he does he never mentions them! He would think it rather indelicate, +like praising something of his own, you know." + +Nikolai smiled, gravely. "That is a very safe state for a husband to be +in--I hope you do not take advantage of it, Joan?" + +She gave him a quick glance. "I wonder what you mean by that?" + +But Nikolai did not explain. He said instead, "I am sorry you have no +children." + +She stiffened. Among her friends it had come to be understood that +children were best not mentioned to Joan. There was a hidden bruise +which time seemed to have left unhealed. + +Nikolai, however, chose not to heed the warning of her expression. + +"A home without children in it," he added, "seems to us wandering folk +only half a home." + +Joan stood up, a hand at her throat. "What do you think," she said in a +stifled voice, "it seems to us who are not wandering folk?..." + +In three questions Stefan Nikolai had discovered about the Blair +household all and more than he wanted to know. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII + + +At that moment there was the sound of a latch-key in the door and Archie +came in; a weary, cheerful Archie, not quite so dapper as of old, but +rather the better for that, perhaps. + +"Hello, darlingest!--'Late as usual.' There--I said it first! Things do +sort of pile up on a person. Why, look who's here? Wait! I know you--" +he extended an eager hand of welcome to the man who rose to greet him. +"I'll bet my hat it's Joan's pal, the author. Guessed you, didn't I? +Only you said he was an old chap, Joan!--Well, well, well! Welcome to +our city. I thought you were projickin' round, as the darkies say, in +Mesopotamia or Timbuctoo or some such spot. Gee, it's been good as a +geography lesson just to read the postmarks on your letters, sir! You've +come to stay with us, of course? Hotel--nonsense!" + +The two shook hands warmly. Despite the breeziness of her husband's +manner, Joan detected in it a respect which pleased her. This was no +mere family friend Archie was welcoming to his city; it was Mr. Nikolai, +the Author. She loved his little boyish bursts of hero-worship. + +"Look at my beautiful present," she said, slipping her hand through his +arm and exhibiting her necklace. "You've got a present, too. It's like +Christmas!" + +Archie was pleased as a child with his gift, a lacquer box surmounted by +an ivory monkey which, when a handle was turned, reached down into a box +and lifted out a cigarette. + +"Ain't they a wonderful little people, though, the Japanese?" he +demanded originally. "Who but them would have thought of such a trick?" + +"'They!' dear," murmured Joan. + +"'They,' then," he repeated, unabashed. "Can't be grammatical till I've +had my supper. I'm dead beat." + +It was not the first time of late that Archie had come home "dead beat," +though he did not often admit it. The treasurer of his company was ill, +and Archie, upon whom Mr. Moore was growing to depend for many things, +had volunteered to undertake the treasurer's work in addition to his +own. But he had not the same gift for finance as for salesmanship, and +took little joy in his new honors; except for the additional increase in +his salary. Joan, to whom money meant nothing so long as she could pay +her bills promptly, was rather troubled by the growing mercenariness of +her husband. He seemed to be always thinking in terms of dollars and +cents. + +But Archie lost his unwonted air of fatigue during dinner in his +interest in the tale of Mr. Nikolai's travels. Nikolai had the writer's +gift of accumulating odd experiences, so that even Ellen lingered unduly +about the table. Archie was enthralled. + +"Isn't it just as good as a geography book to hear him?" he demanded +several times. "To think of the natives of Yezo tattooing blue mustaches +on the girl-babies to make sure they'll catch a husband! Ho, ho, that +tickles me! There's a tip for Cousin Virginia, Joan." + +Here Ellen, who had been making her fourth unnecessary round with the +potatoes, suddenly spluttered and retired to her pantry. + +("The ice," remarked Nikolai to Joan, "is beginning to break.") + +"I've always thought," mused Archie, "that I'd like to see the world a +little myself some time. Armadillos on their native heath, Esquimaux +eating tallow candles, the Latin Quarter in Paris whooping it up--things +like that. But now," he finished with a happy glance at his wife, "I'm +glad enough to be allowed to stay just where I am." + +"Who wouldn't be?" murmured his guest. "With such a charming home--" + +"You ought to have been here when my garden was growing," said Archie, +highly gratified. "If I do say it myself, there's not a farmer +in the State raises better bib-lettuce than I do. As for our +asparagus--yum-yum! Simply melts in the mouth." + +The other looked at him very kindly. "Was that also one of your earlier +dreams--to be a farmer?" + +Archie nodded. "It's always seemed to me about the finest thing a man +could do, if he were able to--live on the land as he was intended to, +raise what he needs to eat and a little more for his friends; chickens +and pigs and a cow, and perhaps a little blooded stock if he could +manage it--" He broke off with a faint sigh. + +"Why, dear," cried his wife, surprised, "I never suspected you of these +bucolic ambitions!" + +"I reckon most men have 'em, if they'll own up to it--don't they, Mr. +Nikolai? Look how all boys love to dig in the dirt!... But you needn't +worry, darlingest. I'm never going to take _you_ off and bury you in the +country. I know better than that!" + +It was late when Nikolai rose to leave them, declining an urgent +invitation to occupy their guest-room. + +"No, I must get back to the hotel and relieve Sacha's mind. If I do not +he will certainly set out to find me, and as he has no language but +Russian, that might lead to complications." + +"Who," demanded Joan, "is Sacha, pray? Have you been stylish enough to +set up a valet?" + +"It is Sacha who appears to have set me up. I had occasion once to do +him a kindness, and he thereupon attached himself permanently to my +person. There is no creature on earth so grateful as a grateful +Russian." + +Joan took him by the arms and made him sit down again. "Not a foot do +you stir till you tell us all about it!" she proclaimed, scenting a +story. + +"About what? Sacha? Well!--In a village where I stopped for awhile a +young mouzhik had been very badly beaten and thrown into prison to await +trial, and things promised to go rather badly with him. So--" + +"Wait a minute. _Why_ had he been beaten?" + +"For murder," said Nikolai calmly. + +His audience gasped. + +"Only the murder was not successful," he continued, "Sacha was +unfortunately interrupted before he had completed the job." + +"Unfortunately!" + +"Yes. The headman of the village had taken Sacha's little sister against +her will, and the boy did what he could to avenge her. The law is not of +much use in such cases--to peasants, at least. The night before I left, +some of his friends liberated him from the village jail, and brought him +to me. Their trust in the power of learning is piteous. They demanded +that I take him away with me to America. That was a little difficult +without a passport, but I managed to smuggle him over the border." + +"How?" demanded Archie, round-eyed. + +"In my trunk," replied Nikolai, as if this were an everyday occurrence. +"I had arranged with a carter to drive me and my luggage early the next +day to the railroad. Instead, he drove me to the border, fortunately not +very far distant. My luggage was almost smothered by the time we got +there, however, despite the air-holes we had bored in the trunk. Poor +Sacha!" + +"But did nobody examine your luggage?" asked Joan. + +Nikolai shrugged. "As I told you, in Russia there is great respect for +learning--also for roubles. I am not without friends in high places. +Such officials as I encountered quite understood that a man of learning +like myself would naturally travel with a heavy trunkful of books, +ventilated by air-holes--But I have been warned that it will not be safe +for me to return to Russia. Thanks to this episode, in connection with +recent writings of mine, I am no longer _persona grata_ there." He +shrugged again. + +Archie's eyes were round. "Whew!" he commented. "That's what I call +life! Sounds like Michael What's-his-name, the Courier of the Czar!" + +"I assure you," murmured Nikolai, "that I am anything but a courier of +the Czar!..." + +Later, when they had gone upstairs, Joan came upon Archie examining her +string of sapphires, with an expression that puzzled her. It was grave, +and not very happy. + +"Dear," she said suddenly, "would you for any reason rather not have me +accept this present from Stefan? It is very handsome, I know. But he is +a rich man, my oldest friend, and he has been giving me things of this +sort ever since I was a baby." + +He turned on her a look of pure astonishment. "Not accept it! Why, +sweetheart, I'm tickled as I can be that such a beautiful thing should +be given to you. It looks like you, too, somehow, as if it had been +specially made for you. I was only wishing--" he sighed faintly--"that I +could give you things like this myself. And those Mandarin coats, and +laces and all he sends you, and--oh, life generally! You ought to see +the world, Joan, like he does. Maybe you can," he added hopefully, "as +soon as I get a little ahead." + +She hugged him. "Why, you old goose! you're always giving me beautiful +things. My pretty engagement-ring, and the house, and the new Lizzie, +and--You see Stefan doesn't have to provide me with dresses and three +meals a day, and put up with all my whims and megrims." + +"I'll bet he wishes he did!" exclaimed Archie, with one of his +occasional flashes of insight. + +She pulled his ears. "You think because you're in love with me yourself +that everybody else is, too! Stefan's about as much in love with me as +he was with--baby Joan. It's simply gratitude. Mother was very sweet to +him always--I've heard her say that it had been her job, and not an easy +one, to restore his faith in women. It seems that he was engaged once to +marry a girl who quite understood about his Jewish blood. But when he +took her down to the East Side in New York to see the old aunt who had +brought him to America, she couldn't stand it. She broke with him, not +because of any difference in religion, but because the aunt spoke +Yiddish and wore a horsehair wig!--Mustn't she feel like a fool, now +that he's become so famous?" + +"Well, I don't know," said Archie doubtfully. "I'd kind of hate to have +Yiddish and a wig in the family myself." + +She looked at him in surprise. "Archie! I didn't know you were such a +snob! So long as Stefan doesn't wear a wig or speak Yiddish, what does +the aunt matter! And the funny part of it was that the aunt rather +looked down upon poor Stefan because his father had married a Gentile! +So he came to regard mother and me as his only family.... Now run along +to bed." She kissed him on his eyes, a caress that Archie loved. "I'm +going to take a dose of valerian and have a good night's sleep. It _is_ +exciting having your best friend drop down on you from who knows where!" + + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII + + +It proved exciting not only to Joan. Some years earlier the arrival of +so distinguished a visitor unadvertised and unpressagented would have +caused little more than a ripple, except perhaps among what Joan called +the Intelligentzia. But now that _belles lettres_ were coming quite into +fashion, the chance of knowing personally a friend of Tolstoi and +Maeterlinck, whose articles appeared in all the more intellectual +magazines, whose recent book of plays had been published simultaneously +in five languages and censored off the American stage into every +up-to-date home in the land, was one that could not be ignored. + +The Russian servant, too, was a picturesque addition; a great, bearded +fellow with eyes like a child, a tall sheepskin _papacha_ on his head, +and his trousers tucked into wrinkled boots. This exotic apparition +frequently opened the Blair door to visitors, and even waited on them at +table, Sacha having without the aid of language won his way somehow to +the rather uncertain heart of Ellen Neal; possibly because of his +infantile appetite for sweets. He followed his master about like a dog, +and whenever Nikolai was in the front of the house, Sacha's broken +English and sudden high laugh were frequently to be heard from the rear. +There were a good many callers at the Blair house in those days. + +The Blairs, and incidentally their friend, also found themselves deluged +with invitations, many of which Joan accepted. She rather enjoyed +showing off her lion, whose simple dignity was quite impervious to +lionizing. His social successes amused her by their unexpectedness; for +Nikolai had no small talk and pretended to none. He paid his chance +companions the compliment of believing them to be interested in whatever +interested him; and very often they were. + +Once, Joan, overhearing him enlarging to an audience composed of Archie, +Emily Carmichael, and a particularly frivolous young divorcee of their +acquaintance, on the Ostwald formula for happiness, felt called upon to +come to the rescue; and received for once in her life a decided snubbing +from her husband. + +"Don't interrupt, Joan, please!--Mr. Nikolai's telling us something +mighty interesting. Go on, sir--G=E^2+W^2--I didn't quite get you about +the Huettengluck and the Heldengluck?" + +"G," explained Nikolai, "is as you know Gluck (happiness). E stands for +Energetics; meaning activity, health, ambition, etc. W stands for +Widerwillig, one of those comprehensive words one finds only in the +German, meaning everything that runs counter to happiness, all the +by-products of activity--opposition, fatigue, trouble, etc. There are +philosophers who hold that by reducing E (the activities of life) one +also reduces W (the unpleasantnesses), thereby attaining happiness. +Renunciation, you understand;--the simple life, such as that of +Diogenes, who threw away his one utensil, the cup, when he saw a man +drinking satisfactorily out of his hand. + +"But the danger is that in generally reducing the formula, G also is +reduced, and may even become minus. At its best the happiness attained +in this way is what Ostwald calls Huettengluck (hut-happiness). He +advocates instead the Heldengluck (hero-happiness). Square, he says, +both your Energetics and your Widerwillig, and the result will be a +doubled happiness, robust, vital. In other words, live to the top of +your powers, suffer to the top of your powers; and you will be able to +enjoy to the top of your powers." + +"Sure!" said Archie. "I see that. Me for Ostwald!" + +The little divorcee remarked in an aside to Joan, "He certainly does +make you think, this high-brow beau of yours! But I _like_ to think, +sometimes." + +It taught Joan a lesson. She recalled a sentence of Trevelyan's: "A man +who has too much sense to overrate his own qualities will often make +amends to his self-esteem by underrating his neighbor's." + +She realized that she might have been making such a mistake herself. If, +as she had complained, there was no real talk to be had in society, were +not she and people like her responsible? + +If a scholar such as Stefan Nikolai found it worth while to give of his +best to simpler comprehensions, was it not pretentious and even +ridiculous of a Joan Blair to "talk down" to them, tactfully adapting +herself to their limitations while concealing yawns behind her hand? She +had the grace to blush for herself.... + +The companionship of Joan and Nikolai was, as Louisville interestedly +suspected, not an entirely intellectual one, however. Like all people +who work hard with their heads (and Nikolai spent many hours at his desk +daily, even in holiday seasons), he knew the full value of play, and had +always been to Joan the most delightful of play-fellows. In her +childhood he had often borrowed her for what they called +"expeditions"--visits to circuses, zooelogical gardens, museums; +boat-journeys, picnics--always to the surprise of Major Darcy, who +regarded a child as a desirable addition to any family, something to be +petted, and instructed, and even romped with in moderation, but by no +means to be made a companion of. + +These expeditions renewed themselves now in modified form. The two were +constantly to be met with in the most unexpected places--tramping about +the parks in the rain, making tea over a gipsy fire by the roadside, +climbing, their pockets bulging with books and apples, to the top of a +certain hill whence miles of wild rolling country were to be seen, and +the city behind them was as if it had never been. Joan had no longer to +enjoy the Beauty of the World alone. The hill became their favorite +haunt; and all through the open winter they climbed to its top almost +daily, where in the shelter of the cliff they built themselves a little +fire and sat, their backs to the world, reading and munching apples, and +talking, talking endlessly. + +Joan never felt that any subject bad been exhausted between them. It +seemed to her that the thoughts of a lifetime had been accumulating in +her mind, waiting for him to pass judgment upon them; and to him it was +no less than a miracle to watch her brain expanding, enlarging, visibly +blossoming under the nourishment he supplied. + +Perhaps her brain was not the only thing Nikolai loved to watch about +Joan. He usually managed to seat himself a little behind her, out of her +range of vision, so that his own might rest where it chose, unobserved. +But he asked no more; having learned of life to practise the Huettengluck +which he did not preach. + +Sometimes Archie made a third on these expeditions; for he had developed +a great enthusiasm for Joan's famous friend, and occasionally neglected +business to sit at the feet of wisdom. Not often, however. Business had +reached a point where it declined to be neglected (the depression of +1913 was at hand); and besides Archie, despite their affectionate +welcome, felt rather _de trop_ with the pair. + +"I'm no high-brow, and there's no use pretending I am," he confessed +once to Emily Carmichael. "But that don't keep me from appreciating +high-brows when I see 'em. It's as good as a correspondence-course in +literature to hear those two go on. I'm as much out of it, though, as if +they were talkin' the French language--which they sometimes are, at +that!" + +"Archie," asked Emily, hesitating, "are you never the least little +bit--jealous?" Her friendship for Joan was too unquestionable for the +remark to sound feline. + +He laughed. "Me jealous? What for? I've got her, haven't I? And he +hasn't, poor chap! Glad to share what I can." + +It happened that at the same time this conversation occurred--it was a +chance meeting down town, and Archie, always the soul of hospitality, +had invited Emily to join him in a cup of hot clam-broth at a +soda-fountain--that the pair on the hilltop were not indulging in either +literature or the French language. Joan, ensconced upon a bed of leaves +with her back against the sheltering cliff and her face warm with +fireglow, remarked dreamily: + +"Stefan, how have I ever managed to live here so long without you?" + +His smile did not reach his eyes; those beautiful, speaking, somber eyes +which reflected in them so much of the history of his race. He said, +"And how shall you manage when I am gone again?" + +She turned quickly to look at him. Something in his voice troubled her. +"Gone--Why, Stefan, you're not thinking of going soon?" + +"My book has made great progress here. It is a pleasant place for +writing--I have nearly finished." + +She gave an exclamation of something like anger. "You said you were +going to stay 'as long as possible.' And after all it was only to finish +another book!" + +"Not quite 'only,' Joan." + +"Then," she demanded impatiently, "why do you talk about going? I am +still here, whether the book is done or not! Are you tired of me +already?" + +"What do you think?" + +"Have you become such a gipsy that you can't stop anywhere more than a +few months?" + +"I wish," he said soberly, "that I might put my roots into this hillside +like a tree, and never, never stir again, except to the winds, and the +sap in my branches, and the seasons as they come and go--" + +"And me beside thee singing in the wilderness?" she smiled, as he did +not continue. "Say you'd need me here somewhere, even if you were a +tree!" + +"Every tree has one bird who lives in its branches. I should keep a nest +safe for you, my dear--you and your Archie." He broke off. "But I am not +a tree, merely a Wandering Jew to whom the time must come again to +wander." + +"But why, why? It is not as if you belonged anywhere else!" + + "Nowhere else in the world, nor yet in Picardy," + +he said. "I have always meant, when I grew old, to come to wherever you +may be, and settle down, and grow up again with your children. But it +seems the time is not yet. I am--not old." + +"You? of course not! You're not even fifty, are you?" + +"No," he sighed, "not even fifty. Oh, to be eighty or thereabouts, with +the dross burnt out and only the spirit left, free--!" + +"I'd hate you to be all spirit, Stefan! Such an uncomfortable, unnatural +person to play with: like one of those cherubim, with only wings and no +_de quoi_ at all.--(You remember the miracle that happened once, when +the Sistine Madonna said to the little angels in the picture with her, +'_Assaiez-vous, mes enfants._' And they answered, '_Mais, Madame, nous +n'avons pas de quoi!_'--) I never could understand people wanting to be +old." She made a restless movement. "Perhaps you've had enough out of +life to satisfy you, but me--Why, I feel as if I had not yet begun to +live!" + +"Nor have you," he said quietly. + +"_Why_, Stefan!" she demanded, facing him. "Why don't I begin, then? +Surely enough has happened to me, more than to most people. I fling +myself into whatever comes along with all my heart. And yet--I don't +seem to be there at all! It is as if the real me were looking on at +somebody else who struggles and amuses herself and suffers. I'm tired of +looking on, tired!" + +"Who isn't?" he said musingly. "We want to be in the thick of the fray, +people like you and me, even if it kills us. But--we can't choose. A +good deal is chosen for us before we're born--the color of our hair, the +shapes of our noses" (he smiled and sighed), "doubtless the kinks in our +brains--Come, the fire is out, and if I allow you to take cold, Ellen +Neal will surely banish me from Eden with her flaming sword." + +As they walked briskly home in the early February twilight, she said +after a long silence, "See here, Stefan, if you really are going when +your book is finished, let's not waste any more time going about to +silly parties and all that. You only do it to please me, and I only do +it to show you off. Why should we pretend any longer?--Let's be together +as much as we possibly can without bothering about anybody else! Shall +we?" + +He looked rather startled. + +"I mean," she continued calmly, "to make no more engagements at all; and +you needn't either--unless you wish to?" + +"I shall not wish to." + +"I thought not! There's really nobody here you care about talking to +except me, is there? And there's nobody in the world I'd willingly waste +a word on if you were about. So there, that's settled!" she said with a +little breath of satisfaction. "It's a good thing you're old enough to +be my father, Stefan, or I suppose people would begin to talk about us. +Still," she added, "I'm glad you're not eighty!" + +Meeting her candid, clear, affectionate gaze, Nikolai managed to summon +up a smile of his own that was quite grandfatherly. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX + + +Joan was not the judge of human nature she fancied herself if she +believed that a disparity in age would render gossip innocuous. The +disparity was not as apparent as she believed. Nikolai was, in his dark, +impassive way, a singularly handsome man, and the stories of his early +ghetto life and later experiences made of him a romantic figure to more +eyes than Joan's. In vain the Jabberwocks rallied around her to a girl. +In vain Effie May, whose shrewd ears heard usually whatever was to be +heard, even in her retirement, casually spread abroad the story of Mr. +Nikolai's devotion to the first Mrs. Darcy. + +Joan's attitude was discouraging to her most loyal friends. She seemed +quite unaware that she was being defended and rallied around. It rather +relieved her when invitations began to dwindle in number; she was thus +saved the trouble of declining them. She entered into their growing +solitude _a deux_ with the same single-mindedness she had brought to +bear upon her frivolous period, her domestic period, and her brief +career of publicity; being one of those natures which can do only one +thing at a time, and that very hard. + +When she thought about their relationship at all, it rather pleased her +to fancy that she was playing Mrs. Thrale to Nikolai's Dr. Johnson. +Unfortunately the people about her were for the most part unaware of +this classic relationship; and had they known of it would have doubtless +regarded it with one eye knowingly closed. + +Much of the town's attention fastened itself upon Archibald. Scandals +there had been before this, even in its upper circles; but they had +maintained hitherto a decent surreptitiousness, had veiled themselves +beneath a more or less transparent cover of secrecy, until some climax +occurred in the way of pistol-shot or divorce-proceeding. The _tertium +quid_, acknowledged and accepted, was new to the experience of +Louisville; and very interesting. + +Meanwhile Stefan Nikolai, all unconscious of the stimulus he was +offering to general conversation, spent all of his free hours with Joan, +having long since faced and discounted the risk of it so far as he was +concerned. The risk Joan herself might run appeared to his experience +negligible. He had never even in his youth attracted women as less +intellectual men attract them. + +Doubtless even had he been aware of the town's talk it would not have +troubled him. For all his knowledge of humanity, he was no man of the +world, in the accepted sense of the term. He lived too much beyond it to +attach great importance to its opinion. In only one person he recognized +any right of criticism. That was Joan's husband, with whom long since he +had come to an understanding. + +It is a pity that neither Joan nor Joan's world ever came to know of +this understanding, which would have added to the affair a distinct +flavor. + +Mr. Nikolai had taken a small apartment, where Joan and her husband and +occasionally others dined with him, or dropped in for a glass of tea in +the Russian fashion and an hour of two of music afterwards. Nikolai, +true to the instinct of his race, never made even a temporary home +without music in it. He had, in addition to a piano, various instruments +collected in different lands, among them a balalaika upon which the +servant Sacha could sometimes be induced to play a shy accompaniment to +peasant ballads. + +But Archie had never come there without Joan; and so one day when he +dropped in alone, ostensibly to "hear the Rooshian pick his banjo," +Nikolai felt a surprise that he was careful not to show. His trained +eyes detected signs of distress in Archie which others, including his +wife, had failed to notice. The beaming smile did not conceal from +Nikolai a little anxious pucker between the brows, a nervous twitching +of the big freckled hands. + +The writer was not unused to being taken into the confidence of troubled +people. It was one of the things that compensated for the enforced +solitude of his life, such an occasional glimpse into the secret hearts +of his fellow-men. It is an odd fact that writers and philosophers and +even poets, all people who live necessarily a little apart from their +kind, are frequently chosen as confessors by those who feel the need of +confession. + +So Nikolai asked no questions, sure that a friendly silence and a good +cigar would produce results. Nor did he ring for Sacha and the "banjo." +At length Archie blurted out without preliminaries: + +"Joan isn't happy, Mr. Nikolai. I guess you've noticed that! She hasn't +been for a long while. I'm not sure she ever was.--I s'pose I was a fool +to think a man like me could make her happy." + +"It is a large order for any one human being to make another human being +happy, Blair." + +"But you could have!" + +Neither spoke for a few minutes. Nikolai made no pretense of not +understanding. Only a slight flush came momentarily into his face, and +left it paler by contrast. "I am not sure," he said at last. "But I +should have liked to try." + +"Of course! I knew that when you cabled us to wait till you came--But +Joan don't know it yet. Funny, isn't it, when she's so smart? She thinks +you feel toward her like a cross between a teacher and a fond +father.--'Father'--my eye! She don't catch you lookin' at her sometimes +the way I do!" + +"Do I--look at her?" + +Archie nodded expressively. "I suppose I understand, because I'm in love +myself. And she don't"--he swallowed hard--"because she isn't." + +"Not yet, perhaps," said the other slowly. "Give her time, my boy." + +"Time? I've given her time." Archie heaved a great sigh. "Now I mean to +give her something else. I mean to give her a chance. She never really +had a chance before, Mr. Nikolai. I--I kind of got her off her guard, +when she was takin' the count. It wasn't sporting of me." + +The other, moved, laid a hand on his knee. In moments of emotion the +foreign blood showed in such slight demonstrativeness. But Anglo-Saxon +Archie stiffened, and the hand was at once removed. + +"She's too fine for me, you see," he went on. "Too sort of delicate.--I +read somewhere that china vases and brass vases couldn't float down a +stream together without the china ones getting smashed (though why vases +would be floating down a stream anyway, _I_ don't know!). But I'm brass, +you see, and she's china. I thought it might be all right after the +twinnies came. I still think it might have been, if they--" Again he +swallowed hard. + +Nikolai nodded. + + "Their hearts are wild + As be the hearts of birds, till childer come." + +But, my dear boy, you speak as if the twinnies had exhausted the +available supply!" + +Archie's eyes dropped. Then he lifted them again in a frank gaze. "I +almost lost her, sir. Do you think I'd put her through a thing like that +again? God!--her little frantic hands clutching at us! And her voice, +hoarse as a fierce animal's--!" He jumped up and crossed to a window, +where he stood with his back to Nikolai, his face working. + +After a moment the other followed, and this time Archie did not stiffen +under his touch. + +"So," said the Jew, "in your love you would deny her the woman's +privilege of suffering?" + +"Yes! Suffering on account of me--yes! Every time. It ain't fair, women +having to stand the whole business. If I could help, if I could bear one +single pain of it--But I can't." + +"No," said Nikolai, his lips twitching despite the sadness about them. +"No, I am afraid you can't. But--" + +"And it's not," interrupted Archie, reverting doggedly to his theme, "as +if I were the right man, you see!" + +They were silent again. + +"You are so afraid of losing her that you will not give her children," +mused Nikolai presently. "And yet if I understand you you are willing to +lose her--otherwise?" + +"To the right man," said Archie directly. "To you--Because I think you +are the right man. She's been more contented since you've been here than +I ever knew her to be. Of course you're twice her age, but that don't +count with brainy people. And you could give her everything I can't--not +just _things_; you know what I mean! Travel, education, all that. She's +in your class, sir, not mine.--Will you do it?" + +Nikolai looked rather bewildered. "Do what, Blair?" + +"Oh, I don't know. Be nice to her all you can, read poetry to her, get +her to care for you. Make love to her, if you want!--You can bet I +wouldn't say that to many men--" he laughed forlornly--"but you're +different, somehow. I can trust you." + +"Thank you." Nikolai's face lit with a very charming smile. "Yes, I +think you can trust me--And in case your scheme were successful, if I +should prove to be 'the right man'--what about you?" + +"Oh, me? Why, I'd just naturally fade out of the landscape." + +"How do you mean?" + +"There're lots of ways. A cramp in swimming, or an accident when you're +cleaning a gun, or a dose of the wrong medicine--" + +Nikolai's brows met sharply. "You mean suicide?" + +"Sure! Why not? It's done every day, and done so the insurance companies +can't prove a thing, too." + +Nikolai rose and stood beside him. "You, who say that you love her," he +said sternly, "you who cannot bear that she should suffer even to obtain +happiness--you would condemn her to a lifetime of grief and remorse? You +might perhaps deceive others. Do you think you could deceive Joan? Happy +or not, you know that she cares for you, Blair!" + +The other's face softened. "Why, yes, I reckon she does, in a way. Once +when I had a bad cold and she was scared for fear it was going to run +into pneumonia she was awfully upset. I guess you're right," he mused. +"It wouldn't do for me to do that. Why, her father's death almost killed +her, and he was a mighty worthless old scamp, and she knew it, too! +Joan's a deeper feeler than you'd think--Say, I might do something to +make her get a divorce?" he suggested, brightening. + +"What, for instance?" + +"Oh, other women,"--he made a face of distaste. "I'd hate it--a low +woman certainly does get my goat! Still--" + +Nikolai smiled. "Do you think you could deceive Joan about that, either? +You might succeed in hurting her, perhaps; but she would not admit it. +Joan is proud." + +"Lord, don't I know it? Proud as Lucifer! No, I've got to think of +something to do that wouldn't be any reflection on her," he mused, "and +yet that she wouldn't stand for. Actionable, as the lawyers say--" + +Nikolai burst out laughing, and taking Archie by the shoulders shook him +to and fro. + +"My dear boy, I fear I cannot enter into this nefarious little plot of +yours. I am not going to make love to your wife--I should not know how! +Nor yet am I going to lure her from you with poetry and fine words. +But--" he added, sobering, "I think with you that she has not yet found +herself. There, perhaps, I can help. I can at least offer her my own +recipe for happiness." + +"You mean that formula thing?" said Archie doubtfully. + +"No formula, Blair. Simply--work." + +The other's face fell. "Joan never has been one of those idle society +girls you read about," he said, defensively. "Sewing, and housekeeping, +and civics, and suffrage, and going around giving advice to the +poor--She's tried 'em all, Mr. Nikolai." + +"And found them all other people's work, not hers.--But, Blair, I must +warn you," he added gravely, "that when she does find her _metier_ you +are in far more danger of losing her to it than to--me, for instance." + +"No danger of losing what you haven't got," sighed Archie. + + + + +CHAPTER L + + +People who know life only on its surfaces were apt to pronounce Joan +Blair a rather hard young person. She would herself have admitted to a +certain hardness, secretly aware, however, that it was a trait she had +deliberately cultivated for protective purposes. Hers was one of the +unfortunate natures that are more attuned to the minor than the major +chords of life. + +Once in her childhood she had confessed to her mother, with a burst of +sobbing, that she never expected to be entirely happy because of all the +stray dogs running about the world, hungry and lonesome. As she grew +older she discovered that it is not only the stray dogs who go hungry +and lonesome. + +She often wondered impatiently why it was that every one with whom she +came into close contact seemed soon or late to develop a marked quality +of pathos: her futile father, the struggling Misses Darcy, gruff old +devoted Ellen, Effie May, Archie--and now more than all Stefan Nikolai. +Despite his renown, his wide experience, his phenomenal rise in life +from so handicapped a beginning, her friend seemed nevertheless to her a +rather tragic figure, belonging to nobody, product of two countries and +native of neither, without even a race to which he could claim complete +allegiance. For his mother had been a Christian girl of high birth, +outcast by her family because of her marriage with a Jew; who had been +in turn rejected by his own people because of her. + +Both had been killed in a _pogrom_, one of those appalling man-hunts +that still take place in the Russian pale in the name of Christianity; +and his father's sister, escaping to a land where there are no +_pogroms_, had brought the child Stefan with her. It must have been a +forlorn boyhood for a sensitive, gifted, half-alien lad, none too +welcome in a poor and growing Jewish family of the slums; working his +brilliant way through school and university, only to meet a crushing +rebuff in this land of the free and equal at the hands of a girl who was +afraid to marry him. + +Joan understood why her mother had taken the hurt and lonely youth into +her rare friendship. Aside from Nikolai's charm of companionship and her +gratitude to him, she felt it an inherited duty to "make it up" to him +for the sadness of his past. And where Joan gave, she gave +unstintingly.... + +She did not pursue her headstrong course without receiving faint +inklings now and then as to its effect upon the community. The warnings +began with Ellen. + +"I ain't sayin' he's not a quiet, pleasant-spoken enough gentleman, as +free with his money as if he was a Christian--Most _too_ free, if you +ast me! What's he want out of it all? After all, a Jew's a Jew." + +"Even if he happens to be a Unitarian?" (Nikolai, during his college +life, had chanced to adopt that creed.) + +"More 'n ever then," muttered Ellen darkly, "because his Jewness is all +bottled up in him, ready to burst out on you unexpected, like a +Jack-in-the-Box--You needn't laugh, Joie--you kin see it all in that eye +of his. The rest of him don't look so Jewy, but if ever I see a Sheenier +eye--! I don't hold with an eye that shows all it feels that way, +myself. Seems sort of shameless." + +"Indecent exposure of the eye," murmured Joan, "does not confine itself +to the Semitic race, Nellen. It seems common to all people who do a good +deal of thinking. One can't seem to mask the eye. The more that goes on +behind it, the more it reflects--As witness my own," she added +complacently. + +Her next warning came from a higher quarter. Happening to encounter Mrs. +Carmichael in the shops one day, that lady invited her to drive home in +her carriage, where she proceeded to catechise her with tongue and +lorgnon. + +"You are looking very charming, dear child--one wonders at not seeing +you about more? I hear your interesting friend is still in town, +however. Perhaps it is he who absorbs so much of your time." + +Joan admitted the imputation. + +"Oh, really? Your husband is very complaisant!--Still, Mr. Blair would +naturally be democratic in his point of view." + +"Democratic? I think I don't understand." + +The older lady shrugged; an Anglo-Saxon shrug, portentous in effect. +"Oh, these writing-people--it's so difficult to tell who they are, isn't +it? But Emily tells me you've always been singularly courageous." + +"It does not take a great deal of courage," said Joan, flushing, "to +continue my mother's friendship with the most brilliant man I know. +There even seem to be people who envy me the opportunity." + +(This shot told, Mrs. Carmichael having been one of the first and most +eager to entertain the visiting celebrity.) + +"Doubtless he is brilliant as a writer," she conceded. "That is his +profession. But even as a writer (I know nothing of him, of course, +otherwise!) do you consider him quite safe, my dear? Those plays, for +instance." + +"Have you read them?" asked Joan bluntly. + +"Why, not yet. I bought them, of course--one does. But one has so little +time for reading. I am told, however, that in one of them a child is +born practically on the stage. At least the characters converse about it +quite openly." + +"Shocking of them," murmured Joan. "Those things should be managed by +means of asterisks. But it's so hard to find actors who play asterisks +acceptably." + +Mrs. Carmichael's lorgnon busied itself. "I should be sorry," remarked +its owner, "to think that any friend of my daughter's would care to +encourage indelicacy, whether in literature or--or in life." + +"Dear me, yes!--life is indelicate enough anyway, without our +encouragement, isn't it?" murmured Joan. + +She felt, perhaps justly, that she had come out of this encounter with +the honors of war. But Joan could ill afford to make enemies.... + +The finish of Nikolai's book postponed itself from week to week. Spring +came, and early summer, that most witching of seasons in the middle +South, languid with the scent of magnolia-blossoms, gay with the bright +parasols and fragile muslins that flutter forth like butterflies at the +first touch of sun. With Nikolai to share it, the gray old town regained +something of its former glamour for Joan. She had many favorite spots to +show him--a quiet tree-arched street of patriarchal mansions in the +midst of warehouses, with all the charm and old-world dignity of a +London square; a certain secluded nook low on the bank of the slow, +yellow river, undiscovered save by an occasional working-girl and her +shirt-sleeved "gentleman-friend," with whom Nikolai conversed as +pleasantly as with old acquaintances. He had not the Major's elegant +distaste for the _canaille_. + +Through his trained eyes, Joan began to note again certain picturesque +touches which had charmed her when first she came to Louisville; a +primitive, two-wheeled cart bobbing along a crowded street, drawn by +mules hitched tandem-fashion, on one of which a dusky muleteer perched +sidewise, singing. "That might be Spain," said Nikolai. Or perhaps two +mulatto women, dressed in the extreme of fashion even to rouge and +face-veils, greeting each other with lifted, outflung hand--a gesture as +savage and typically African as if they were only a few weeks out of the +jungle, instead of a few generations--Joan found that with Nikolai it +was possible to do a good deal of traveling right at home. + +Meanwhile the scandal of their association grew and spread; and at last +Emily, distressed at the magnitude of the storm of which her friend was +the center, decided to interfere. Not with words, however. Long social +experience had given her tact, if not wisdom. + +Thereafter it began to be noticed that Mrs. Blair and her distinguished +friend were not to be seen so often alone together. There was usually a +third on their expeditions, and frequently a fourth, whenever Archie +could be pressed into service. + +"Now that I've got some one to talk to myself, I don't feel so in the +way," he confessed naively. + +Emily formed a habit of dropping in at the Blairs' in the early +afternoon (just at the finish of writing hours), so that she had +naturally to be included in any plans that were afoot. + +"I don't know what's come over you, dear," remarked Joan once, half +laughing. "You're positively rushing me nowadays!--or is it Nikolai? I +begin to suspect you of designs upon Stefan." + +"And why not? He's perfectly eligible. We old maids have to keep a +weather eye out, you know--But how do you know it isn't Archie I'm +pursuing?" asked Emily calmly. "I appreciated him long before you did, +you know." + +"Emmy, Emmy, such indelicacy!" sighed Joan. "And him a married party, +too! What would your mother say?" + +"I'm feeding her Shaw lately in broken doses. She's prepared for almost +anything--You don't really mind my trailing you about this way, do you, +Joan?" she asked, sobering. "I love hearing you two talk. Am I in the +way, if I just keep quiet as a mouse?" + +"Mind? Of course not!" Joan kissed her. "You and Stefan are my two +dearest friends, and I _love_ to have you friends with each other. +Besides, he says you have an 'interesting mind,' my dear. Welcome to our +city!" + +So Emily continued to make a courageous third in their walks and talks +and studies; accepted by Nikolai with his usual courteous friendliness, +and by the gossips with feelings which were not unmixed. + +"It's the husband's doings--he's awake at last!" declared one faction. + +"Men are so fickle. He's had a good deal of her--and Emily Carmichael is +looking particularly well this year. Poor Joan!" murmured the other +faction, composed of her more intimate acquaintances. + +Joan's feelings on the matter were also not unmixed. She loved Emily; +her presence was always a pleasure; she had assuredly nothing to discuss +with Nikolai that could not be discussed before so devoted an audience. +And yet-- + +Stefan came to take the other girl's company so much for granted that +one evening, when Joan suggested a row up the river for their next day's +outing, it was natural enough for him to say, "That sounds charming! and +I think Miss Carmichael will enjoy it, too." + +This innocent remark produced surprising results; as surprising to Joan +as to himself. She jumped to her feet. "Look here, Stefan! If you want +Emily so much, why don't you take her by yourself?" she cried, and +bursting into tears she fled from the room. + +Nikolai stared blankly at Archie. + +"Will you tell me _what_ I have said?" + +For once the other was the first to understand. + +"Don't you see?" he replied with his patient smile (and there is nothing +sadder to see in life than patience on the face of a young man). "It's +come about just as I thought it would, Mr. Nikolai. She's--she's jealous +of you. That's all." + + * * * * * + +That night Stefan Nikolai, usually very regular in habit, sat so late by +his open window that the servant Sacha emerged at intervals to +investigate. + +"Is Excellency ill, that he neither sleeps nor reads?" + +"Not ill, Sacha. Go to bed." + +There was a lilac-tree blooming below the window, and the scent of the +young summer came in to him, flooding his heart, his senses-- + +The servant appeared again. + +"Has Excellency sadness?" + +"Not sadness, Sacha. I think--it is happiness." + +"And yet he sighs?" + +Nikolai stirred, and got to his feet. + +"That is because our wandering begins again. The book is done. In a few +days we go." + +The servant took an eager step toward him. "Not alone?" + +Nikolai started. He had forgotten, as so many forget, the watching eyes +of those who serve us. "Certainly, alone!" he said sharply. "Am I not +always alone?" + +Sacha's eyes dropped. "In my country," he suggested gently, "when we see +a woman which we need, we take her." + +The other smiled. The two had been through much together. "And if she +chances to belong to some one else?" + +"Then"--with an eloquent thrust of the hand--"we kill!" But seeing that +the hint was unlikely to bear fruit, he added dispiritedly, "Excellency +is not, however, a peasant. Sometimes to be a peasant is good." + + + + +CHAPTER LI + + +The storm which burst in August, 1914, had the effect of blotting out +smaller storms into nothingness. It brought in its wake different things +to different natures: to some apprehension, sheer personal terror, to +others the quickening sense of high adventure, to others yet sick +disillusionment with a world that was still capable of such gigantic +folly. + +To Joan, in the dead blankness that followed the departure of her +friend, the great war seemed strangely like a godsend. It was as if she +had cried in desperation to Providence. "What next?" and Providence had +answered, "This!" + +Perhaps she was not the only woman to whom the sudden extraneous demand +for all that was in her came as a godsend. + +She flung herself head, hand, and heart, into the organization of relief +work. As the Germans pursued their incredible way through Belgium, it +seemed to her that every frantic mother, every maimed child, every +desperate father, the very roofless houses and ruined orchards, cried +aloud upon her, Joan Blair, for help. She could not understand why +others did not seem to hear the cry, how those about her could pursue +the usual course of life unheeding--Joan was one of the first Americans +to declare war upon Germany. + +But those about her heard better than she realized. Gradually as the +change came, it came. Hers was not the only blood in the old border +State to thrill to the call of drums. And as in the earlier days, while +the men got down their firearms to clean them, the women rolled up their +sleeves and settled down to work. + +Under the impetus of Joan and others like her, Bridge quickly gave way +to bandage-making, the click of unaccustomed needles drowned the chatter +of clubrooms and tea-table, and the Jabberwocks in a body abandoned the +pursuit of culture for a course in hospital assistance. "So that we +shall be ready by the time our own boys need us," explained Joan. + +"But, Mrs. Blair, you ought to curb those firebrand sentiments of +yours!" protested Judge Carmichael to her after one of her public +utterances. "It is enjoined upon us Americans to be strictly neutral." + +"Neutral?" cried the daughter of Richard Darcy. "Neutral? Have you ever +seen a pit-terrier jump on a respectable little poodle-dog out in the +front yard protecting his household--and were you able to remain +_neutral_? I know my country better than that!" + +In keeping up with Joan's new activities, the town quite forgot to look +at her askance. + +Nikolai, too, was making of the war a personal matter. He wrote that he, +with other writers in New York, was financing a hospital unit with which +he intended to go to France in any capacity where he would be useful. He +had been in his youth, among other things, a student of medicine. + +"Isn't it fine, Archie?" she cried, thrilling to this letter. "Oh, if we +could only do something ourselves! I'd like to send him a contribution +for his unit, anyway. May I?" + +Archie hesitated. "How much, dear?" + +Joan flushed. It was the first time he had failed to give her without +question whatever she asked of him. + +"Sorry to have to ask," she said, rather stiffly. "But I've given the +last cent I had to the Red Cross. Could you spare me fifty dollars, say, +and take it out of my next allowance?" + +Archie silently got out his check-book. + +It troubled her to notice in him something almost like apathy toward the +war. The startling headlines, the growing report of horrors, even the +eleventh-hour miracle of that stand upon the Marne, moved him to no more +than a preoccupied attention. He appeared to concern himself far more +with the uncertain state of the stock-market, which he studied +assiduously. Joan could not accustom herself to the idea of an Archie +commercialized: interesting himself at such a crisis in the world's +history merely with money. + +An explanation at last dawned upon her. "My dear," she accused him one +day, "I believe you've been speculating!" + +"Who--me? Oh, every man speculates, sweetheart. Business itself is a +good deal of a speculation nowadays. Nothing to worry your precious head +about, though." + +"Would you like me to economize, Archie, more than I usually do?" she +asked. + +"Oh, no. You're never extravagant. A little more or less can't matter." + +Preoccupied though he seemed, he was never too preoccupied to show her +the special consideration and gentleness she had noticed ever since +Nikolai left. + +"As if he were trying to comfort me!" she thought uneasily. Her queer +outburst of nerves with Stefan was something she never allowed herself +to think of. She did not quite understand it; and Joan dreaded things +she could not understand. + +Archie seemed to be developing nerves himself of late. When the doorbell +or telephone rang suddenly, he jumped as if he had been touched; and he +went to his office almost every evening, coming home late and very +tired. + +"You're working too hard, old boy," protested Joan. "I'll be glad when +the treasurer of your company feels well enough to come back from +Saranac and take his old job again." + +"He's back now. I expect to turn the books over to him in a few days." + +"Good! I'm glad of it." + +"Are you?" asked Archie, rather queerly. + +"Of course!--though it means less salary, doesn't it? What do we care? +We had enough before. You know, dear, money simply means _nothing_ to +me, so long as the bills are paid." + +"I know," he said soberly. + +Perhaps if she had been less obsessed with the war, Joan might have been +better prepared for what was coming.... + +One day, on her way home from the Red Cross rooms, she bought herself an +early edition of an evening paper, and was looking over the headlines +when she came across the following: + + SHORTAGE DISCOVERED + BOOKS OF MOORE AND COMPANY IN HANDS OF EXPERT + +Farther down, aghast, incredulous, she read the name of her husband. + +When she reached home, he was already there. Johnny Carmichael and Ellen +were with him, both talking at once. They stopped as Joan came bursting +in. + +"Archie! This can't be _true_?" + +He had risen to go to her. Now he sank back in his chair, nodding. + +"I been tellin' him he's got to git out while the gittin's good," +muttered Ellen Neal, her language consorting oddly with the tense fear +in her face. "Here's plenty of money"--she held out a battered +pocket-book. "He can hop on the L. & N. train as it passes Fourth +Street. They ain't a minute to waste! The main thing's to git him away +before they--take him!" + +"She's right!" insisted Johnny Carmichael, stuttering with excitement. +"Once he's out of the way, my father'll get everything fixed. He's +closeted with Moore now. We've stopped that beastly article in the +paper--lots of people won't have seen the first edition. Father's taken +on the case--Mrs. Blair, you've got to make Archie _wake up_!" + +But Joan could not speak. + +Archie rose to his feet again. He seemed invested with a new, quiet +dignity. He put a hand on each of their shoulders. + +"I'm not going to run, of course," he said. "Thank you just the same. +Now cut along, will you? I want to talk to my wife." + + + + +CHAPTER LII + + +Always afterwards, in thinking of that nightmare time, Joan remembered +with a stab of remorse that when he held out his arms to her she had not +gone to them--He did not make the mistake again. + +In the hour they had together before others came, he made things as +plain to her as he could. The sum was not large as defalcations go. +Moore and Company would not suffer for it--they were a rich firm; and +later when he had served out his term he would be able to pay them back. +This he repeated over and over. + +The trouble had commenced with the purchase of the house. It was too +ambitious. Archie, struggle as he might, had begun shortly to fall +behind with the payments, and had borrowed more money on it to meet +them. (Joan recalled signing the papers, which meant nothing to her; +merely "business.") Somehow, what Archie made never went quite far +enough. Not through her fault!--this, too, he insisted upon again and +again. How was she to guess how things were, so long as her own and the +household allowances were paid to her regularly? + +"Oh, but why didn't you _tell_ me?" + +"A fellow don't like to admit that he's bitten off more than he can +chew, till he's sure." + +So he had tried a little speculating, and won; a little more, and won +again. (It was at this time that he bought Joan her modest automobile.) +After that, the story is too trite to need repeating. There came the +depression of 1913, later the cataclysm of the war; and Archie with the +finances of Moore and Company at his disposal. He lost, heavily, and +borrowed to protect himself; recovered enough to replace his borrowings; +went in deeper--and was caught with no means of making good some +$15,000. + +"Our house?" suggested Joan, trembling. + +"Mortgaged up to the eaves. Our equity in it wouldn't be a drop in the +bucket." + +"What about your stock in that Building Association!" + +He laughed. "Swallowed up so long ago I'd forgotten I ever had any.... +No, dear, I'm done. I took a long chance, and I took it once too often. +Nothing for it but to serve out whatever term they give me, and then +come back and--show 'em." His set jaw quivered a little. + +"'Serve out'--Archie! You don't mean _jail_?" + +He nodded, still with his amazing quietness. "I want to. It's coming to +me. And I'm young yet. You'll see!... But that don't mean _you're_ to be +mixed up in it," he added, slowly. "When I go to the Pen, that lets you +out, dear. You get your freedom. Nobody will expect you to--to stay +married to a criminal." + +He was watching her closely, and she stared back at him. He had proposed +the monstrous idea seemingly in all seriousness, as if it were one to +which he had given long consideration. + +"Don't talk that way!" she said, with sudden sternness. "Of course you +are not to go to jail. I'll fix that somehow--I'll get the money." + +But still she could not go to him, could not offer him any comfort. She +was too stunned. This did not seem to her Archie, this quiet stranger +who spoke so casually of penitentiaries and criminals and divorce. + +They were glad when people came to interrupt them. + +And people did come, in a steady stream. It seemed as if half the town +had read that hastily suppressed news-item, and were determined that +Archie Blair should not go to prison. + +"It's most worth while getting into trouble to see how many friends +you've got you never knew about!" he sighed. + +The rescuers began with Effie May, check-book in hand and panting with +distress, so upset that she had forgotten to rouge her face; and it +ended with Mr. Florsheimer of the Gents' Furnishing, who intimated that +if a couple of thou' at the usual rate of interest would be of any use +to Archie, they were his. + +The offer that perhaps touched him the most deeply came from the Misses +Darcy. + +"We happen to be at the moment temporarily embarrassed for funds," +explained Miss Iphigenia, at her stateliest, (and looking curiously like +her Cousin Richard). "But it will be a simple matter to arrange another +mortgage on our house. Dear papa did so frequently, I remember. And of +course in a--an accident of this sort--Why, my dear boy, that is what +houses are for!" + +But to all these suggestions Archie was able gratefully to explain that +his wife had already arranged matters. For as soon as she collected her +numbed faculties, she had telegraphed to Stefan Nikolai, and he had +replied within the hour: "Draw on me to any amount." + +"There," she remarked to the weeping Ellen. "That's the Jewness coming +out in him, just as you said it would!..." + +Ellen did all the weeping that was done in the Blair household during +this crisis. The shock seemed to have quite broken her, so that it was +the mistress who had to comfort the servant. + +"I'd ought to have known," she wailed, "with him lookin' so peakid and +all! But I thought it was--something else. Oh, why couldn't he have +_told_ me? I could have kep' the bills down more, had pot-roasts instead +of fancy-cuts, and hearts--you know how tasty beef-hearts can be, Joan, +when I set my mind to 'em! 'T aint as if I wasn't an old hand at makin' +things do. But you always had such rich ways, just like your father. And +I let it fool me.... Oh, the poor boy, the poor, scairt, lonesome boy, +tryin' to go ahead all by himself!" + +Joan's heart ached for her husband, too, as much as a heart can ache +that seems turned into stone. She felt physically numb all over, except +in her brain, and that worked mercilessly as ever--merciless not only to +him but to herself. She did not hesitate to put the blame where much of +it belonged. + +"I have been utterly selfish, one of the vampires that sap a man's +strength, his ability, his very decency, and give nothing in return. +Yet--does any one but a fool yield to vampires?" + +She tried to make for him every excuse he had not made for himself. + +"It was all for me, to give me what he thought I wanted, the things my +friends have. He could not bear to deprive me of anything." + +Yet he had deprived her of the thing she valued most in life: her pride. +He had committed the sin unpardonable. He had, as the English put it, +"let her down." She, Joan Darcy, in whom pride was the dominant trait, +pride of race, of intellect, of character--she was the wife of a +defaulter, a common thief! + +Despite people's marked kindness and consideration toward her, she +fancied she knew what they were saying: "An extravagant wife. A woman +who neglected her home and her husband." + +But of the charge of extravagance at least she was able to acquit +herself. The iron of poverty had entered too early and too deep into her +soul for that. She knew that dressing, for instance, cost her far less +than it cost any woman of her acquaintance. She had always made taste +and skill take the place of money there, and in other ways. Much that +was unusual in her little house she had done herself, staining walls, +painting woodwork, covering furniture. Where her neighbors employed +several servants, she did very well with one; and if she left much of +her household management in Ellen's hands, it was because she knew them +to be more experienced than her own. + +"No," she told herself, puzzling the thing over, "we have simply cut our +coat according to other people's cloth--And how was I to know?" + +It is the cry of many a startled wife whose husband has tried to keep on +his shoulders the burden two should share: How was I to know? + +She was comforted to think that no tradespeople at least were suffering +from their catastrophe; she owed not a dollar in the world.... Here Joan +winced, recalling her determination that there should be no "Indians" in +the annals of the Blair family. Archie, in order that she might pay +bills promptly, had allowed her to pay them with other people's money! + +His own attitude was incredible to her. He seemed not particularly +ashamed, nor even down-cast; if anything, rather relieved that the +strain was over. The enormity of the thing he had done did not appear to +impress him. He was more like a man who has bet too heavily at the +races, but means to show himself a good loser. For the first time Joan +considered seriously the mystery surrounding his birth. Emily Carmichael +had been right--it was "brave" to marry a man of such doubtful +antecedents. Who knew what handicaps were his to fight, what heritage of +moral obliquity? + +There was after all a certain safety in good birth, she +thought--forgetting that traditions and fine breeding had not sufficed +to keep her own father from a slight moral obliquity, such as had +permitted him to speculate with trust-funds. (Of the Major's earlier +misadventure she never learned.) + +And then a sudden rush of reaction came over her. Archie--and moral +obliquity! It was as impossible to associate the two as to associate a +fine dog with treachery. He had simply, for her sake, chosen to take his +long chance and abide by the consequences. An act more gallant, more +blindly, foolishly, needlessly sacrificial, had never been laid upon the +altar of love. And yet--she could not forgive him for it. + +"It must be because I do not care for him," she told herself stonily; +and was glad in her heart that his children had not lived. + + + + +CHAPTER LIII + + +But if she could not offer Archie the tenderness he craved, she gave him +at least all the other assistance in her power. Her executive ability +stood them both in good stead. + +It was she who interviewed Mr. Moore, far more successfully than Judge +Carmichael had done, persuading him not only to hush the matter up but +to retain Archie in his employ. "If I can afford to take another chance +on him, surely you can?" she insisted; an argument which the dazzled old +gentleman found quite unanswerable. + +Within a week she had procured an excellent tenant for the house, +furnished, with privilege of sale at a month's notice. She had disposed +of her little car at a good price, and placed Pegasus for the time being +in the Carmichael stable. + +"I can't sell her, of course, nor give her away--it would be like +selling or giving away Ellen Neal! But if you'll just ride her, Emily, +and play with her sometimes? She's used to a good deal of attention." + +"I'll probably spoil her to death," promised Emily, deeply touched by +this first sign of sentiment she had seen in her friend during that +tragic time. + +Joan moved about her pretty house, cleaning, packing, getting things in +order for the tenant, as calmly as if she were not leaving it forever. +Even in the nursery she was perfectly composed, until she came upon the +toys Ellen had hidden there. Then she locked the door for awhile, and +neither Emily nor Ellen dared go to her. + +"But what are we going to do ourselves?" moaned Ellen, rocking +helplessly to and fro in her kitchen. All her self-reliance had deserted +her. She was suddenly an old woman. + +"I haven't decided yet, dear. One thing at a time," replied her +mistress, steadily.... + +But in the end it was Archie who decided. + +He had acquiesced without comment in all Joan's arrangements. Only once +had he protested. It was when she telegraphed Stefan Nikolai for the +money. + +"Not that, Joan--not that, _please_!" he said, with a quick flush. "I'd +rather go to the Pen than that--Really, the Pen will be quite a rest for +me," he added, piteously. + +"Nonsense!" she replied; and he said no more. + +But for all his acquiescence, he did not seem to be numbed by the thing, +as Joan was. Though she often heard him walking up and down his room at +night, and suffered for him, at times he appeared almost happy. + +"I can't get over how _good_ people are!" he said once. "Think of Mr. +Moore being willing to take me back! Not as manager, of course--the boys +wouldn't be wanting to take orders from me yet awhile. Nor I couldn't +expect to handle money. But he sent for me, and said I was the best +salesman he'd ever had, and offered me the old job back on a commission +basis! Pretty nice, what?" + +"Shall you take it?" she asked, curiously. She herself could not have +faced disgrace with any such meekness. + +"Take it? Why, I jumped at the chance!" + +Joan flushed. + +"Archie," she said suddenly, "do you realize that there's a war going on +over there in Europe! Do you realize that there is need in France for +every able-bodied man that's got a life to spare?--Have you thought of +that?" + +She was startled by the change in his face. The veins stood out on his +forehead, and his hands clenched. "Have I thought of it? God, girl, what +else do you suppose I've been thinking about the past year? I'd give the +soul out of my body to slip away from this--this grab-bag, and get into +a good clean fight--Those damned baby-killers! Gosh!--fight? Just give +me a chance at that dachshund of a Kaiser with my two bare hands! +But"--he made the little gesture that she realized was becoming +characteristic of him--a gesture of renunciation--"I've got to stay here +now. There isn't any money in soldiering." + +Her flush deepened. "Money! I never want to hear the word again. Haven't +you had enough to do with just 'money,' Archie?" + +"Not on your life," he said doggedly. "I've got to make a heap of it +before I'm through. Fifteen thousand dollars!--That reminds me," he went +on in another tone. "You say they need able-bodied men over there--don't +they need women, too? D'you suppose your friend Nikolai could find +something for you to do in that unit of his?" + +He caught the sudden gleam in her eye. + +"That would please you, wouldn't it?" he said quietly. "Of course it +would mean hard work, dangerous work, too, perhaps--but it's a great +chance for you, for anybody! To sort of help make history.... Mr. +Nikolai was talkin' to us once about those two kinds of happiness, +Huettengluck and Heldengluck--remember? Well, I don't believe you're the +sort to be satisfied with any Huettengluck--nor I wouldn't want you to +be. Take your chance, Joan--and don't lose it." His voice shook a +little. "I'd like mighty well to have somebody of my name mixed up in +this war somehow!" + +She put her hand on his--almost her first demonstration of tenderness +since the shock came; but the gleam had already died out of her eyes. + +"That's dear of you, Archie--fine and generous. But if your place is +here, mine is, too. I am not going to desert you. How can you think such +a thing? I mean to be a better wife to you than I have been. We've got +to start again, and start right. I want to help you...." + +And then inexplicably, unbelievably, the worm turned. His nerves had +strained too far. He shook off her hand as if it burned him. + +"Help!" he said roughly. "Help? A hell of a lot of help _you_ are! Going +around like a martyr, with a don't touch-me, how-dare-you look on your +face, as if I'd done the thing just to spite you! My God! A woman with +any guts to her--" + +"_Archie!_" + +"Oh, yes, that shocks you--such a fine lady as you are," He seemed to be +working himself up, like a woman in hysterics. "So grandly indifferent +to money, too!--just so's you've got enough of it. Who spent the money, +anyway?--tell me that! Was it me, who haven't bought myself so much as a +new pair of pants in three years?" + +She stared at him, mutely. "_So this_," she thought, "_is the real +man!_" His ears, his great, coarse hands--they meant something after +all. + +Her white look drove him into a further frenzy. "Oh, yes, glare at me, +if I'm good enough for you to glare at!--Let me tell you something--if +it's on my account you're staying, you needn't. That's all! It's a +_wife_ a man wants at a time like this, not any marble image, not any +tragedy-queen! Not any noble character that watches him out of the +corner of her eye, and if he's real good--pats him on the hand! I've had +enough of that!--Go on with your friend Nikolai," he cried violently. +"Try him out for six months or a year, and if he suits, and you don't +want to come back here--by God, you needn't!" + +"Archie," she said, trembling in every limb, "I shall leave your house +to-morrow." + +"Good!" he cried. "Good! And I'm going to beat you to it!" + +He strode to the kitchen door and flung it wide. "Come here, Ellen Neal, +and bear witness that I'm leaving this house first." + +The front door banged behind him.... + +The two women stared at each other. + +"Was that--was that _Mr. Archie_?" + +"Yes," said Joan, still trembling, "it was!--Come upstairs and help me +pack my trunk." + + + + +CHAPTER LIV + + +There is little to be said here about Joan's experiences in France. The +story of those is better told in her own remarkable letters, which began +shortly to appear in certain magazines; and in the book that followed. + +Stefan Nikolai had found her shelter with a friend of his, Lady +Arbuthnot, a clever old Englishwoman whose long horse-face and charming +voice and odd combinations of tweed skirt and evening blouses were known +and loved in every institution of mercy about Paris. Under Lady +Arbuthnot's guidance Joan found use for not only her Red Cross training +but for everything else she had, whether by gift or acquirement. +Singing, story-telling, "play-acting," letter-writing, even dancing, all +seemed as important a part of her equipment as the regulation sewing, +bandage-making, and cookery. She tried an inexperienced hand at washing +dishes and scrubbing floors. She also tried her hand at mending +shattered nerves and even broken hearts; and at none of these things was +she entirely unsuccessful. There was a certain power of concentration in +Joan that made failure unlikely in whatever she undertook. + +It was a wonderful time to her. She never got nearer the trenches than +Paris; but there the trenches came to her, with all their horror, their +sordid hideousness, their sheer, soul-stirring grandeur. She saw +shattered men struggling back to life that they might offer it again, +with eagerness; she saw philanthropists living in comfort on money that +had been obtained to feed starving refugees; she saw girl-children, who +had been forced to bear German babies, loving those babies with a +passion of maternity piteously beyond their years. Priests labored side +by side with panders; women of the great world, such as Lady Arbuthnot, +shared bed and board and ceaseless effort with W. C. T. U. workers from +Kansas, with missionaries out of China, with ex-courtesans from the +Paris streets, with those most sheltered of all aristocrats, the women +of the upper French bourgeoisie. + +It was humanity with all barriers down, all contacts clean and clear. +And Louisville, Kentucky, seemed as far away and negligible as the +planet Earth may seem to possible dwellers on the moon. + +Sometimes she had word from there--not often, for Ellen Neal was no +letter-writer, and even Emily Carmichael's loyalty had been strained by +Joan's unexplained desertion of her husband in his trouble. Once her +cousin Miss Iphigenia Darcy wrote, and from her letter Joan gathered +some impression of the effect of her sudden departure from Louisville. + + In my day girls were taught that their first duty was to the + _Home_, married or not. But I daresay this is a very + old-fashioned notion, and with all those poor, unfortunate + French needing help--Sister Euphie and Sister Virgie and I have + frequently discussed offering our services. It is strange to + have a war going on without any Darcys in it! (You haven't the + _name_, you see, although a _true Darcy_ in every other + particular.) However, it does not seem the place for + _unmarried_ ladies just now, with so many men lying about in + the hospitals not fully clothed, and those unfortunate Belgian + victims (you know what I mean)! As I tell everybody, "Advanced + young matrons like Joan are the ones really needed over there." + But you know how narrow people are, my dear! I sometimes think + our city is growing a little _provincial_. + +Joan smiled and sighed over this communication; and then forgot it. + +From Archie she had no word, except an occasional line or two with the +money-order that came regularly on the first of each month, and was as +regularly returned. The magazine connections Stefan Nikolai had made for +her provided what money she needed, and she had not yet sufficiently +forgiven Archie to be willing to accept anything from him. + +At first she wrote to him, not so much from any sense of duty, as from +pity. She did not forget what had passed between them, she made no +attempt to ignore the fact that he had failed her utterly in every way. +But she no longer had time to brood upon her own affairs. In the vortex +of life where she now found herself, personal troubles seemed somehow to +disappear into the common whole. Constant association with others' +sorrow developed her quality of sympathy to an almost painful extent; +and though she knew that Ellen Neal was making Archie comfortable enough +in the old rooms on Poplar Street, his loneliness, his humble +acquiescence in disgrace, hurt like a bruise on her heart. So she wrote +to him, impersonally but kindly. + +Since he so rarely replied, however, her letters gradually ceased. +Evidently Archie, like many others, found it difficult to forgive where +he had wronged. Joan shrugged--a little gesture she had learned from +Nikolai--and dismissed her husband as much as possible from her mind. + +There was much else to occupy it: not only in the way of work but of +pleasure. Paris, even in her grief, did not forget the human necessity +for pleasure, nor did Stefan Nikolai. She saw rather less of him than +she had expected to, for he was frequently absent for weeks at a time on +unexplained journeys, about which Joan had learned to ask no questions. +But whether he was near her or not, she was always conscious of his +enveloping care, his devoted watchfulness. He gave her, too, many +friends besides Lady Arbuthnot. + +Once Sacha, always left on guard over Joan during these absences of +Nikolai's, betrayed the fact that his master had gone into Russia. Joan +taxed him with it when he returned. + +"Russia is not safe for you, Stefan!--you told me so yourself." + +"Surely you would not have me at such a time seek only places of +safety?" he smiled. + +"Why can't you stick to the hospital work you came over for, instead of +gallivanting about all over the place?" she demanded, with a petulance +that concealed anxiety. + +"One goes where one is useful," he replied quietly. "There are many who +know more about medicine than I, but few who know more about +Russia--except in Germany, perhaps! My countrymen are very susceptible +to the spoken word." + +It was his only explanation of his frequent disappearances; but Joan, +understanding that wars must be won not only on the battlefield, uttered +no more protests, and made the most of her friend when she had him. + +For the first time in her life, she came near to the innermost meaning +of the word happiness. It was not the placid content of her +"pasture-time," nor the feverish, half-guilty ecstasy which had come to +her for a brief hour through the unworthy medium of Eduard Desmond. It +wrapped her round warmly like the consciousness of some beloved +presence--which indeed it was, though Joan for once did not quite dare +to analyze the sensation. She only knew that here, among strangers +speaking a strange tongue, she was for the first time in her experience +utterly at home. And she was curiously at the top of her powers. In that +atmosphere, nothing seemed impossible of accomplishment. There was a +sense of personal possession and being possessed--"By Paris," she told +herself; but in her heart another name echoed. + +Unaware, the great experience, the thing for which she had blindly +groped, had come upon her; not with a sudden leap to which her nature +leaped in response, but with a slow, quiet, irresistibly gathering +force, like a great stream that bore her upon its breast, without +volition, without struggle, toward some bourne of which she had no +knowledge. And no fear. + +Joan might have said with Browning: + + "Let us be unashamed of soul ... + Is it in our control + To love or not to love?" + +It is always the body that suggests shame; and the body had ever been a +negligible part of Joan's make-up. She felt as independent of it now as +if she were already spirit, floating about in space--always with this +certainty of meeting there another spirit, however, and mingling with +it. + +This spiritual mingling was a matter she never discussed with +Nikolai--the only thing in the universe, perhaps, which they did not +discuss. Theirs was an understanding too close for words, and beyond +words.... But sometimes, when Joan remembered that she had once feared +love, believing it one of those things that are better done without, she +smiled to herself; an inner, brooding smile that gave the final touch of +the chisel to her features, and made her much sought by painters. + +Paris seemed more than usual that year the rendezvous for people who had +won distinction in the arts and sciences, and who came to render their +patron city in her hour of need what assistance was in their power. +Among these people Nikolai was made welcome with an eagerness, and even +a deference, which delighted Joan, and a little surprised her; for his +simplicity made it easy to forget that he belonged among famous folk as +a matter of right. + +On his account, perhaps a little on her own as well, Joan also was +welcomed by them. She was not at all abashed by the company of +greatness, having inherited from Richard Darcy the naive conviction that +the best was good enough for her; and moreover she found among them the +keen power of enjoyment that invariably accompanies high mental +development. She had long since suspected, and now proved, that only +thinking people know how to play. + +It was a great relief to her, just then, to be with strangers who +accepted her entirely at face-value, with neither curiosity nor demand. +An unquestioning, simple freedom prevailed in these upper reaches which +Joan fancied might be dangerous enough (unless it had the effect of +putting people, as it were, on honor). Nobody enquired whether she had a +husband, for instance, or where he was. It seemed quite sufficient that +she was the young friend of Stefan Nikolai; "_Spiritosa e simpatica_," +as a certain great Italian tragedienne pronounced her. Their relations +were taken as a matter of course. The two were always included together +in whatever plans were afoot, and Joan noticed other such companionships +among them which passed equally unquestioned. She was nominally under +the care of Lady Arbuthnot; but that widely experienced noblewoman +displayed a carelessness of chaperonage that would have caused hair to +rise on the head of, say, Mrs. Carmichael. + +Joan was at perfect liberty to spend with her friend every hour that +either could spare from the day's duties, and did so. "Why not?" +appeared to be the attitude of a company which concerns itself more with +matters of the spirit than of the flesh.... + +In Louisville speculation was once more rife and lurid, sharing interest +only with the war headlines and with Joan Blair's latest letter to the +magazines. + +"We appear to have been nourishing Genius in our bosom unawares!" +remarked the Jabberwocks to each other; not altogether pleased, as is +the immemorial way of friendship. + +"I don't know why you were unaware," commented Emily Carmichael, +quietly. "She has always shown every earmark of genius, even to +neglecting the best husband that ever lived!" + +The Jabberwocks exchanged surprised and meaningful glances. + + + + +CHAPTER LV + + +Into the busy abstraction of Joan's Paris life came presently one of her +step-mother's rare letters. It was a round, childish, yet curiously firm +scrawl written on lavender paper (Effie May having abandoned pink +effects in honor of her widowhood), which for some reason brought home +to Joan her father's little city so clearly that she could almost smell +it; a distinctive summer smell compounded of hot asphalt, blossoming +ailanthus trees, and a suggestion of the glue-factory. + + Folks here are making bets as to whether you ever mean to come + back again, + +(wrote Effie May). + + And why should you? is what I say. I keep thinking how pleased + Major would be to have you hobnobbing with lady earls and + famous characters and high life generally. It's just where you + belong, and so did he. + + Archie comes to see me real often, and he don't look so poorly + as he did at first. He's got him up a regiment, mostly Y. M. C. + A. fellows and a few old boys with stummicks and bald heads, + and I hear they drill real cute. He goes horseback riding a + good deal with the Carmichael girl, too, and I guess it does + him good. Ellen says he seems more peckish for his meals. + +(Here Joan laid down the letter, thoughtfully. "Emily!--Well, why not? +She always did like him. I'm glad," she mused. She certainly was not +going to begrudge her husband the freedom she asked for herself.) + + Ellen comes in every day to look after things for me, now that + I'm laid up. She don't like me any better than she used to, and + I expect she just thinks it's a family duty, but I'm glad to + have her anyhow. I keep nigger help now, the white ones being + so hard to get, and I'm not the hand with them your father was. + I never saw any one get as much out of niggers as Major + could!--out of white folks, too, for that matter, couldn't he? + + Of course I'm not so sick as the doctors make out (they got to + earn the money somehow), but it's hard to sleep sitting up this + way, and sometimes at night I get to thinking. So I made a + will. I knew you'd never touch Calloway's money with a ten-foot + pole, but I thought maybe you wouldn't mind seeing it got spent + right. I want it to go to one of those shelters you told about + in the magazine, for little French girls with babies and no + husbands. Seems only fair, when I've had more than my share of + husbands and no kids. + + Paris seems awful far away, and I guess I better let you off + that promise you made me to see that I didn't get laid out with + no corset on. They probably couldn't get a corset on me now, + anyway, I'm that fleshy. Not that I'm ordering me a coffin for + anytime real soon, dearie! but sometimes at night a person gets + to thinking. + +Joan was rather startled by this letter, and sent for Nikolai. + +"What do you make of it, Stefan? That part: 'It's hard to sleep sitting +up this way'--what does it mean?" + +"I am afraid," he said gravely, "it means something serious--Advanced +heart-disease, probably. A woman of her weight would be liable to it." + +Joan gave an exclamation of dismay. In that moment she discovered that +she not only did not dislike Effie May; she was fond of her. The thought +of never again seeing the vulgar, cheery, friendly soul was unexpectedly +distressing. + +"Poor woman!--all alone there with her 'nigger help!' and Ellen sourly +doing her duty--Or is it _my_ duty?" She was not thinking entirely of +Effie May.... "Stefan"--her face blanched. "She was my father's wife. +She tried her best to be a mother to me. I owe her a good deal. Has the +time come to repay it? Does this mean--Oh, Stefan, do you think this +means I ought to go back? I've been so happy here, so useful! For the +first time in my life I have felt that I really 'belonged.' These people +who are doing things--" + +She gazed at him beseechingly. It gradually dawned upon her that what +she dreaded so to leave was not these people who were doing things, not +that larger, freer life to which Nikolai had given her the key; not even +the Spirit that met her Spirit there in space. It was Nikolai himself, +the man, the comrade--the lover. + +Her whole being seemed to rush out to meet the need that suddenly gazed +at her from Nikolai's eyes.... + +"Stefan," she said very low, "_must_ I go back?" + +For a moment he did not answer. Then he said, his voice not quite under +control "You expect me to decide that for you? My dear, you ask too +much." + +He took his hat and left; but Joan knew that he had decided. + + * * * * * + +They walked up and down the _quai_ for an hour or so before the gangway +was drawn in. Joan always afterwards remembered what they said, as one +recalls the least syllable of the dying. There was a sense of finality +about this parting, against which she struggled in vain. + +She filled her eyes with him as if she had never seen him before, and +would not again. She noted little physical details which had hitherto +escaped her--the fine cameo cutting of his features, the long, +sensitive, expressive hands, the air he shared with many Europeans of +belonging to an older, more finished race than her own. In his calm +impassivity there was a suggestion of Slavic fatalism, combined with the +tragic patience of the Jew. Only his eyes smoldered with an unquenchable +spark that flamed to hers. + +She knew that the Romance which had always eluded her was here at her +side, in the person of this perfect comrade, this shadowy, insistent +influence in her life which was about to withdraw into the shadows +again. Perhaps she understood, too, that Romance to remain Romance must +be elusive. Seized and held, it changes into something else. Yet she +tried to cling to it. + +"You will be right here waiting on this spot when I come back, won't +you, Stefan?--For I _will_ come back," she exclaimed as he did not +answer. "Say that you know I will!" + +"I know that you will do whatever seems to you right." + +She made a mutinous face at him. "That's more than I know! I'm much more +likely to do whatever seems to me nice--Oh, Stefan, why will you persist +in believing in me always, no matter how badly I behave?" Lightly as she +spoke, her eyes were fixed on him, telling him consciously what her lips +could not utter. + +He answered at one of his usual tangents. "Do you not know that every +splinter of a genuine Cremona violin vibrates to the bow on as true a +tone as did the unbroken instrument?" + +"You mean--Mother," she said. "Oh, but I'm not all Cremona! I think +there's a good deal in me of the fiddle Nero played while Rome burned. +It's not _fair_ to be expected to live up to a self-sacrificing mother! +If you don't, you have failed her; if you do, she gets the +credit--Besides, I'm needed here just as much as I am in Louisville. +More! Not only these poor people need me, but--you do, Stefan." + +She had brought it into the open at last, the one thing which they had +never yet discussed in their discussions of everything under the sun; +that eternal human question of Thou-and-I. She was a little frightened, +dreading yet eager for the answer. + +It was long in coming. Nikolai understood the crisis they had reached. +He knew that it was his to put out his hand and hold her, to keep +forever in his life this one gift of the gods he craved, the fulfilled +hope which had been his beacon through many a lonely year. Once before +because of a mistake in judgment he had lost her, to her own +unhappiness. There must be no more mistakes in judgment. + +But the habit of truth in thought and word was too great for him. + +"No," he said at last, "I do not need you." + +He saw her wince. + +"I do not need you," he repeated steadily, "and you do not need me, +Joan. People like us get on quite well alone. Better, perhaps. It is not +good for us to be too happy--Besides, what we already have of each other +cannot be affected by time or space. You know that? The rest--is +extraneous. Tell me this: Have you ever in any important moment of your +life forgotten me, have you ever failed to be conscious of my presence, +no matter what the distance between us?" + +She looked deep into the luminous eyes fixed upon hers. + +"Never, Stefan. Even in my unthinking school-days, even in that strange +time after I lost my babies and could not write to you, I have counted +upon you always. Everything that has come to me, good or bad, big or +little, I have shared with you in my thoughts. Only--I did not realize +it." + +"That," he said quietly, "is marriage. Your mother realized it. She knew +when you were only a child of the tie between us--But she and I thought +that I must keep away from you until the accident of time corrected +itself. You see we have been sent into this incarnation rather far +apart." + +"You kept away too long, Stefan!" + +"I know. But what does it matter?" He spoke half to himself, with his +little shrug. "This manifestation or the next--we shall not be apart +always." + +"No, no!" she cried, catching at his hand. "That is too ethereal, too +mystic for me--I can't bear it, Stefan! I want the people I love with me +_now_, in this 'manifestation,' as you call it, where I can talk with +them, and touch them, and hold on to them--I am not all spirit. I +thought I was, but--I'm not. Oh, my dear, aren't you human _at all_?" + +He did not reply; and Joan, looking at him through swimming tears, saw +that it was because he could not. + +She dropped his hand. "Forgive me!" she whispered. "I will try to climb +up to you--since you will not come down to me.... But you must help me." + +"I will help," said Nikolai. + +They spoke a little later of Archie, who had been all the while at the +back of their thoughts. Both knew it was to him she was returning, +rather than to her step-mother. + +"You expect too much of him, Joan--you always expect too much of people. +Try to take them as you find them. He is one of the many who think +better with their hearts than with their heads." + +She commented with a faint smile, "My step-mother once told me that +there was nothing in the world so dangerous as what she called +'bone-headedness.'" + +"Exactly!--especially to the bone-headed--Your Archie is no fool, +however. There are perhaps fewer convolutions in his gray matter than in +ours, that is all. He has made mistakes with his head, and will again. +But with his heart--never." + +"You are not condoning," she asked slowly, "what Archie has done?" + +He answered after a little pause, "To me there seems nothing +unforgivable, nothing utterly vicious, except selfishness. There is no +self in Archie Blair. Not enough self." + +Joan told him then reluctantly of something she had never before +mentioned: her final incredible scene with her husband. She was +curiously ashamed of that scene, as though it were she who had betrayed +herself, instead of Archie. "Should you not call that a mistake of the +heart?" + +But Nikolai did not appear to be particularly shocked by it. "I had no +idea," he commented, "that Blair was so good an actor." + +"An actor!--You think that scene was not genuine?" + +"I think, in fact I know, that your husband would hesitate to sacrifice +nothing to what he believed your happiness; even your respect--I love +that man," he said simply. "And so do you, Joan. Otherwise he would have +been powerless to hurt you." + +Her eyes widened. She asked, as so many before her have asked, "Is it +possible to love--two people at once?" + +"Two? A dozen--a hundred! Does a mother love two children at +once?--Surely that depends upon the stage of the soul's development." + +"But always one best," she said quite fiercely. + +"Always one best," he repeated.... + +The parting had come. Staring at him desperately, she saw in his eyes a +depth of pain and loneliness that made her own for the moment +insignificant. So much of his life was done; so much of hers, after all, +only beginning. + +"Oh, my dear, my dear!" she cried in a sort of bewilderment. "What is it +all about? Is there a purpose somewhere in this muddle of things? Why do +you say it is not good for people like us to be happy, when others go to +the end of their days in calm security? I do not want any--wicked +things, Stefan! I only want to be with you always. To take care of you +if you are sick, to mend your clothes, and make you comfortable, +and--love you. I want us to grow old together, not alone. Oh, my dear, +all your life you have been alone; and I can't bear it!--What is the +good of this thing that has waked in me at last, if I am not to use it?" + +"You are," he said steadily. "Emotion to be safe must, _must_ translate +itself into action." + +"But how, how? By doing for others, you are going to say--but it's such +a thankless task, Stefan! A red-blooded woman like me to take to +altruism, as some take to drugs!--Why must some of us live so intensely, +so consciously, only to be denied again and again the fulfilment that we +crave? Sinking our lives into those of lesser people, always of lesser +people!" + +He answered gently, "'_Car je suis le Cobzar._'--It is time you +understood.... You know what a Cobzar is?" + +She shook her head; and he told her. + +"In the more remote Magyar villages, news of the world comes to the +people by means of a sort of minstrel who is called the Cobzar. He is to +them not only newsbringer, but historian and poet and philosopher as +well. He is treated with respect, they reward his singing with food and +wine and a place beside the fire, for it is an honor to be born a +Cobzar. But not always a happy honor, Joan. People do not listen to +singing that comes out of an empty heart. It is the Cobzar's duty to +tell them the story of themselves, and that is only the story of +himself, wrought into many forms. Their fears and joys, their failures +and their suffering and their hopes--he must be part of it all, and yet +apart, that he may not only understand but watch, remembering always his +mission to bring life to the knowledge of those who live." + +He quoted for her then some lines which Joan never forgot: + + "Aime-moi, parce que j'ai besoin de ton amour pour mes chansons, + Va t'en, parce que j'ai besoin de pleurer pour mes chansons, + Meurs, parce que j'ai besoin de chanter la mort pour mes chansons, + Car je suis le Cobzar." + +The water widened between them.... + + + + +CHAPTER LVI + + +All during her homeward journey Joan had the feeling that she was waking +slowly from a long dream; such a dream as ether gives, more vivid than +reality itself but impossible of recapture. As he came literally nearer, +Archie grew to be the dominant figure in her thoughts rather than +Nikolai, though Nikolai was always there; Archie under the new light her +friend's parting words had shed upon him. It mortified her to realize +that another, almost a stranger to him, should have read her husband +better than she did. It occurred to her, too, that with Nikolai she had +not left behind her all Romance. A man who was capable of such a +sacrifice as Archie Blair's could not be entirely commonplace. Her eyes +had been suddenly opened. + +Perhaps this was part of the help Nikolai had promised. + +Indeed, her sentiments toward her husband became rather puzzling, being +composed so far as she could decipher them of a desire to comfort him +for the loss of herself, combined with a desire to be comforted by him +for the loss of Stefan.... + +Her fellow-travelers eyed Joan with more than the usual interest she +invariably excited among strangers; but to no avail. It was a time when +what few barriers exist on shipboard at best went down in the sharing of +a common peril, the menace of the submarine. Not so with Joan, however. +She seemed unaware of friendly advances or invidious criticism: wrapped +in a curious aloofness, from danger and from her fellowman alike. Nor +was it an aloofness that would pass. + +She had her great renunciation to make, and faced it; a renunciation +which took the most difficult form, of dedication. Loneliness was upon +her, not loneliness as she had known it before, a groping restlessness, +a dissatisfaction. There was nothing left to grope for. She knew quite +well now what she wanted, had always wanted, and might never have; but +she knew, too, that on this solitary road of life, the warm human clasp +of hands is something, the warm human touch of lips.... Thinking of +Archie as Nikolai thought of him, her heart seemed to be stretching, +literally expanding, with growing-pains; so that there might be room in +it for two--or for a dozen, a hundred, as he had promised. + +And presently she was able to return in spirit to the first night of her +marriage, when for a little interval of time she had lost Joan the +individual, and become simply the woman, whose mission is to give.... + +She had thought so much of her husband that she was quite prepared to +find him waiting at the dock for her, yellow boots, Derby hat, and all. +But he was not there, nor yet at the station in Louisville, though she +had wired him from New York the date and hour of her coming. + +Only two of the Misses Darcy were there to meet her, in Effie May's +limousine, their manner nicely adjusted between melancholy, importance, +and the _empressement_ due a distinguished relative returning from +foreign parts. + +"Yes, my dear, she is low, very low! Restoratives have to be +administered constantly," sighed Miss Virginia. "What a charming hat! +Paris, I suppose? I always have maintained that the French touch--So +that is why Sister Iphigenia is not here to meet you. We three take +turns at watching with her. Your husband comes every night, and Ellen +Neal makes herself useful, though why she should, with two nurses--No +expense spared, of course. So pleasant to be able to die in such luxury, +isn't it? She has been watching for you every day--seemed to be quite +certain you were coming, even before she had your cablegram." + +Joan interrupted this lugubrious chatter to ask the immediate +whereabouts of Archie. The sisters exchanged uneasy glances. + +"Cousin Effie May happened to mention that he was out riding this +afternoon. Doubtless he had made some engagement before your letter +came, or I am sure--" Miss Euphemia nudged her visibly into silence. + +"I see," said Joan, flushing a trifle.... + +If Effie May was as "low" as reported, she showed little sign of it. She +welcomed Joan in her usual loud and cheery tones, magnificent in a new +lavender tea-gown, as pink-cheeked and carefully coiffed as ever. At her +elbow was a box of chocolates. + +"I knew that letter'd fetch you!" she chuckled. "Sort o' pitiful, wasn't +it? People were mighty surprised to hear you were coming back. But not +me. You're not so hard-shelled as you try to be, girlie!" + +Like the Misses Darcy, she displayed immediate interest in the Paris +hat. + +"Chick as it can be," she pronounced approvingly. "I certainly am glad +you're not high-brow enough yet to neglect your looks. No woman on earth +is smart enough to be able to wear a hat that don't become her." + +"There's a love of a hat in my trunk for you," laughed Joan, a weight +lifting from her heart. (She decided that her hasty and dangerous +journey had been a wild-goose chase so far as her step-mother was +concerned. This was not her idea of a death-bed interview.) "A black +crepe poke with a white lining, Effie May. Paris still does her mourning +'chickly'--poor Paris!" + +The invalid's eye gleamed. "I might be trying it on when the doctor +comes.... Oh, yes, dearie, he's taking notice!" Her several chins +quivered with mirth. "But nothing doing. My heart's in the grave with +Major--And Calloway," she added, dreamily. "I been thinking about the +two of 'em so much lately that I declare I get 'em sort of mixed in my +mind!" + +She made Joan sit down beside her and tell her at once all about Paris, +and how many noblewomen she had met, and what they wore, and whether it +was true that Frenchmen took more notice of married women, even of +middleaged ones than of girls. + +"Paris is the burg for me!" she sighed. + +But in the midst of Joan's liveliest recital, her head dropped suddenly +forward and she fell asleep. It was the other's first intimation that +she had not come after all upon a wild goose chase. + +She sat for a moment looking at this woman who had tried to be a mother +to her, with her absurd golden head and beringed, puffy hands. Then, +following an impulse rare with her, she stooped and kissed the painted +cheek very tenderly. It was a pity that Effie May did not know. + +She slipped away to the telephone and called up the Carmichael house. +The maid told her that Miss Emily was at home. + +("So _she's_ not out riding with him!" thought Joan.) + +Emily appeared politely surprised by her friend's arrival. + +"Yes, Archie tells me how ill your step-mother is. I am so sorry! You +say you will be here some time before you go back? I shall hope to see +you, then." + +"I hope you may," replied Joan even more politely, "but unfortunately I +shall be very busy.... Look here, Emily Carmichael, what's the matter +with you anyway? Come right over here and explain." + +Emily came. + +When the two had had their talk out and parted, tear-stained but +reconciled, Joan went once more to the telephone and called up her +husband. + +His familiar voice over the wire gave her an unexpected thrill. She had +forgotten how big and warm it was, even when he sang out of tune. + +"Archie," she asked directly, "why weren't you at the station to meet +me?" + +He stammered out some rather breathless excuse. + +"Yes, I know all about that--Emily told me that she often gets you to +exercise Pegasus for her when she hasn't time. But why to-day +particularly, when you knew I was coming?" + +His voice was under better control now. "Why, you see, I didn't think it +would look well for us to be seen together just now--" + +"Wouldn't look well!" + +"Why, no, Joan. You've got a pretty good case of abandonment--I left the +house first, you know--but if we were to be seen together the minute you +get home, sort of friendly-like, it might get to the ears of the Judge +and prejudice him. When the whole thing's settled, of course, then--" + +Joan gasped. + +"What do you mean," she interrupted, "by a case of abandonment?" + +"You wouldn't care to bring suit on any other grounds, would you!" he +asked anxiously. "The fact is I'm afraid you couldn't, Joan. There +_aren't_ any other grounds." + +"Oh," she said blankly. "I understand.... Well, my dear, I'm sorry you +feel that you can't come and say at least hello to me--'sort of +friendly-like.'" + +"So am I," he answered, gently.... + + * * * * * + +Joan wandered back to her step-mother's room, feeling queer and dazed. +She had never before realized that anything other than death might be +irremediable. + +During all her months in Paris she had not even contemplated the +possibility of divorcing Archie. She was blindly content with things as +they stood, and it had not occurred to her that Archie might be +otherwise, that he had seriously meant, for his own sake, perhaps, the +suggestion he had once made to her. She was so used to doing his +thinking for him. + +Divorce!--that refuge of the foolish, the frail, those so lacking in +pride as to be willing to confide their failures to the world! + +"It is so--so unnecessary," she protested aloud, wondering vaguely why +the phrase was familiar to her. Then with a start she recognized it as +one of Eduard Desmond's. + +The hot blood rushed into her face. Did they--Emily, Effie May, even +Archie himself--believe her capable of the sort of thing Eduard Desmond +meant? Dropping one husband to take on another--or perhaps taking on +another without dropping the first? Was this the interpretation that had +been put upon her life abroad, her precious companionship with +Nikolai?--She shivered. No wonder Archie had not cared to come to see +her! + +For once the thought of Nikolai was of no comfort to her. She put it +from her almost with horror. It seemed to her that their relationship +was irreparably smirched, degraded, by the touch of profane hands.... + + * * * * * + +She hoped that Effie May had awakened from her doze, so great was her +need just then of the shrewd, tolerant, entirely human counsel of her +step-mother. + +But Effie May had not awakened; nor did she wake again. + + + + +CHAPTER LVII + + +The funeral did great credit to the Misses Darcys' experience in such +affairs. A crowded, beflowered church bore witness to the fact that +Darcy was still a name to be reckoned with in the community. Not only +the best people were there in quite sufficient numbers, but many of +those lesser folk whose duties bring them happily into touch with the +best people; milliners, modistes, clerks in the better shops, and so +forth. + +As Mr. Florsheimer of the Gents' Furnishing remarked to Miss Murphy of +the Silks: "Such a loss to trade, ain't she?" + +Among these humbler friends not a few genuine tears were shed, however, +for Effie May had scattered her kindness impartially. + +Joan, in solitary state as chief mourner, with the Misses Darcy sadly +rustling in the pew behind her, was conscious of many curious glances +turned her way. Perhaps her husband was the only person there whose eyes +never turned in her direction. She was glad of her heavy veil, through +which she might study him unobserved. + +He sat just opposite among the other pall-bearers, grave and quiet, with +the odd dignity still about him which had come at the time of his +disgrace. She noted new lines in his face, an unexpected touch of gray +in his boyish, curling hair. The ears, the freckles, the great, clumsy +hands were still much in evidence; but somehow Archie had lost forever +his slight touch of the ridiculous. Declining to run away from disgrace, +facing his music, humbly but unafraid, it occurred to Joan that her +husband was approaching rather nearly her own and her father's standard +of gentlehood. + +"Blessings brighten," she reminded herself, grimly, "as they take their +flight!..." + +She came presently under the soothing spell of the old cathedral, a +shabby, not very beautiful edifice left stranded in a neighborhood no +longer its own, but whose pews still bore the names of the town's first +citizens, gentlemen who had been her father's boyhood playmates, and +whose fathers had worshiped there with his father. Oddly enough, +considering how little time she had spent within its walls, the echoing +dimness of it gave Joan her first sense of home-coming. This old house +of God, that had witnessed so many ends and so many beginnings of human +endeavor, had gathered into itself the heart of a city. + +A warm heart, it was, thought Joan; despite those speculative glances +fixed upon her. She recalled people's kindness to Archie in his trouble, +their quick response to any call upon their sympathy, their willingness +to give every stranger his chance. She remembered their invincible +hospitality, whether in wealth or poverty; the ardor with which they +entered into the interest of the moment, be it work or play, their +generous admiration for any fellow-citizen who made a success in the +world. A warm heart, she thought, and a loyal one. + +She understood in that moment why it was that the people of this little +city rarely drifted too far away to come back again. Just as the human +body claims in the end its six feet of earth for a resting-place, so +must the human spirit claim its bit of the world for a resting-place, a +Neighborhood. The tragedy of a wandering life such as Nikolai's was, she +saw, in its detachment from common human interests, from a Neighborhood. +Better a tree, with its roots in friendly soil, as he had once said. + +Cast her out though it might, Joan knew that her Neighborhood was here, +here among her father's people.... + +A trolley-car clanged past, and the challenge of the peanutman came +cheerfully in at the open door. "Pop-corn, Lady? Yere's your fine fraish +roasted peanuts, right off the hopper!" + +The little lads in the choir stirred restlessly to this voice of the +summer outside. "Lead, Kindly Light," they warbled in a piercing young +treble, with now and then the Bishop's robust tones added in a +hospitable effort to make the thing go. + +Joan's irrepressible fancy recalled the last occasion on which she had +heard this noble anthem. It was at the Country Club, where some +irreverent wag was playing it in rag-time; and Effie May had danced to +it merrily, Lightfoot Ef with her indulgent Major. Joan wondered whether +Lightfoot Ef might be remembering, too, and smiling perhaps in her +coffin.... + +But out at the cemetery her queer sense of elation vanished. Here, in +the shadow of her father's monolith, with Mary's modest headstone on one +side, a yawning grave on the other, at her feet two mounds so small as +hardly to be noticed, the aloneness of the human soul suddenly smote her +with such force that she could not stand under it. Was she never to know +again that human touch of hands and of lips? Was her only neighborhood +after all to be this quiet city of the dead? + +She went quite dizzy and might have fallen, but for the quick arm that +supported her; whose in that bitter moment she neither knew nor cared. +But she was not surprised to find herself presently alone in a carriage +with Archie. + +"I guess I oughtn't to have done this," he apologized, when he saw that +she could listen to him. "I just didn't think--out there. I'll go as +soon as you feel better, dear. Where do you want the driver to take +you!" + +"Home," she said. It was no more than a whisper. + +"You mean to Mrs. Darcy's house? Won't that be pretty gloomy for you +just now? Better let him take you to your cousins'--or to Miss Emily's. +How would that be? I know she'd he mighty glad to have you." + +Joan gathered herself together for an effort. It seemed to her, faint as +she was, that much depended upon this moment. But for once her eloquence +failed her. She could only repeat that she wanted to go home. + +Archie understood her trembling better than her speech, perhaps. He, +too, began to tremble. + +"I--I haven't got any home now, Joan. Only the old attic-room in Poplar +Street--" + +She cried out, painfully, "Archie! don't you _want_ me any more?..." + +In his arms at last, her face pressed roughly against the familiar +roughness of his coat, words returned to her. She quoted her husband's +sole adventure into poetry: + + "A book of verses underneath the roof, + A cup of coffee and an egg, in troof, + And Mrs Neal to cook it up for us-- + Ah, attic life were Paradise enoof." + +Archibald did his faithful best to laugh; but the effort was not +successful. + + * * * * * + +So it happened that they were received from a funeral as they had once +been from a wedding, into the portal of an ancient, friendly mansion +whose stairway still creaks to the tread of ghosts and broken people, +with now and then a happy footstep to remind it of its youth. And there +Ellen Neal, mounting stiffly and wearily with the aid of the curving +bannister, was hailed by a loud whisper from the floor above. + +"Hsst! Come on up and look who's here." + +A radiant Archie led her to his door, and exhibited the One and Only, +clad in his bathrobe, curled up asleep upon his bed. + +"Humph!" gulped Ellen through her tears. "I _knew_ that woman'd manage +to fix things somehow!" Which was a final reluctant tribute to the force +of kindness that had been Effie May. + + + + +TWO YEARS LATER + + +A distinguished, foreign-looking gentleman with pointed gray beard got +off an interurban car in the vicinity of Louisville, and stood gazing +about him uncertainly. It was not the suburban neighborhood he had +expected to find, but a distinctly rural one. Here and there smoke was +visible above the tree-tops, but the only house within sight was a small +farm-cottage of red brick, which had doubtless stood there among its +gnarled fruit-trees at a time when the turnpike that passed it was a +postroad leading from the metropolis of Middletown (now half a hundred +houses strung along the pike) to the little port of Louisville on the +Ohio. + +There was a big chimney at either end, in the picturesque but +impractical early fashion, and a bricked-up terrace across the front +overflowing with simple flowers: petunias, snapdragon, larkspur. Upon +the lawn grazed a rather stiff-kneed thoroughbred, apparently under +convoy of a pair of infants. One of these, the smaller, got about on all +fours with astonishing rapidity, and seemed imbued with the spirit of +investigation. The other, slightly larger, was extremely black as to +color and extremely capable as to manner. + +"Tek keer, you Steffum!" Mr. Nikolai heard this one admonish. "Don't you +go so near his mouf, you heah me? Dat hawss could snap you up jes' as +easy as nippin' off a dandelium!" + +The visitor leaned over the fence in sudden interest, "Can you tell me, +young person, whether Mrs. Blair lives here?" + +At sound of his voice the investigatory infant, in an excess of +hospitality, rose to its legs and teetered eagerly toward him, only to +come to earth at Mr. Nikolai's feet. Nothing daunted, however, it gazed +up at him from this lowly position with a mixture of Archie's grin and +the droll, blue, wistful twinkle of Joan. + +"Dar you goes, Steffum!" cried the guardian, in hot pursuit. "Dirtyin' +up anodder clean dress so's Miss Ellen gwinter whup me good--He's always +a-fallin' over on his face dataway," she complained, while maternally +repairing damages with the skirt of what appeared to be an only garment. +"I b'lieve he goes and does it a-purpose!" + +"To gain experience, perhaps?" suggested the visitor. + +"I reck'n," assented the other, doubtfully. "Yassuh, Mis' Blair she +_libs_ heah, but she's playin' on de type-writer dis mawnin'. Will I run +an' tell her comp'ny is came?" + +"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed the gentleman. "Not if she is playing on a +typewriter." + +"Mr. Archie, _he_ libs heah, too, when he ain't a trabelin' on de +railroad train," volunteered the black one, "He's out behine, makin' him +a little house to put a hawg in. Heah him?" + +Mr. Nikolai nodded. There was a good deal of intermittent hammering and +whistling going on in the background. + +"You need not announce me, thank you. Perhaps my namesake will lead me +to him?" + +He held out a forefinger to the younger Stefan, who examined it, found +it good, and clasped a trusting fist about it. So linked, the two moved +off at a pace suitable to experimental footsteps. + +In this slow progress they presently came upon a somewhat nondescript +figure at work in a potato-patch. It wore blue jeans overall trousers, +surmounted by what had once been a leghorn picture-hat, from which +straggled a lock or two of sparse gray hair. + +Mr. Nikolai stared at this figure for a puzzled moment; and then burst +out laughing. + +"Why, Ellen Neal! I did not recognize you as a farmerette." + +"Land sakes!" She sat down abruptly among the potato-plants, whether out +of surprise or for purposes of concealment it is impossible to state. + +But her welcome when it came was for once not grudging. Perhaps she +recalled a certain timely offer of help; or perhaps this graybeard, with +his slight, tired stoop and his lined eyes, no longer seemed to her a +menace to the sheepfold. Be that as it may, her greeting was not outdone +in warmth even by Archie's. + +"I've simply _got_ to tell Joan!" cried Archie. "She'll never forgive me +if I don't interrupt her just this once." + +"Not when it is coming like that," forbade Nikolai, listening to the +rapid click of a typewriter from the house beyond. "Neither battle, +murder, nor sudden death must be allowed to interfere with a flow of +thought that is coming a hundred words to the minute." + +"Well, I suppose you know," conceded the husband, reluctantly-- + +An hour later, however, Ellen took matters into her own hands. She +appeared at the kitchen door (dressed, Nikolai was flattered to observe, +in a costume of purple crepe with Battenburg touches), and loudly rang a +dinner-bell. + +"That'll fetch her! Joan ain't ever too much up in the clouds to hear a +dinner-bell; and I don't mean to have my jelly-omelette kep' waitin' on +no flows of thought," she remarked. + +Joan came out to them, a little untidy as to dress and hair (why is it +that the Muse can never be pursued in perfect neatness?) and moving +vaguely, as if half in a dream. There was a faint vertical wrinkle +between her brows which was new to Nikolai, but her pallor had given +place to warm tan, and both face and figure showed a slight suggestion +of fullness, a little matronly poise that was more charming than her +Botticelli _maigre_ had been. + +As she passed her son, she swooped down upon him and lifted him with a +fine free swing onto her shoulder. + +"Hi there, old Dirt-in-the-Face! Where's your Dada?" + +Mother and child made a memorable picture as they approached, the long +lifting lines of the woman's body, her laughing face upturned to the +boy, who straddled her shoulder unafraid of his high position, chuckling +and kicking fat legs as she tickled him. + +The two men who loved Joan exchanged a sympathetic glance. "Mine!" said +each in his heart; the one triumphantly, the other with the little shrug +that was habitual to him. + +Not until she was close upon them did she realize who waited for her +there beside Archie. She stopped short. Then, without a word, she put +down her child and went to Nikolai and kissed him. + +If that kiss, so impulsive and without self-consciousness, was like a +stab in Nikolai's heart, he did not show it. She had not dared to kiss +him when they parted. + +There came back to him in that moment an echo of a certain prophesy he +had once made to Archie: "I must warn you that when she does find her +_metier_, you are more in danger of losing her to it than to me." + +Was she lost to both of them, already?... + +"Oh, but Stefan, dear, how tired you look!" ("And how old!" her thought +finished.) "You've been working too hard over there!" + +"One does. It seems the least one can do." + +"Too much work and not enough exercise," pronounced Archie, casting a +semi-professional eye over him. "Nothing ages a man so quick as to let +his muscles sag on him--but you brainy people always forget you've got +muscles except in your heads. I'll have to make you hoe the garden and +put on the gloves with me now and then, like I do Joan." + +"No wonder she is able to hoist fat sons about as if they were +feathers!" commented Nikolai. + +It was a happy luncheon they had together, and a garrulous one. The +Blair family talked all at once, including the youngest, who had three +words at his command and liked to practice them. Ellen also joined +freely in the conversation as she waited upon them. Nikolai was the only +quiet one, seeming content to look and listen. + +He had to hear all about the finding of the Farm, as Archie called his +two acres and a cottage. When the reunited Blairs had been looking about +for a place they could afford to live in--"And raise a family," added +Archie happily--they had come across the little place, weed-grown and +deserted, and rented it for almost nothing. + +"The chickens and the garden alone practically pay the rent," boasted +Archie, "and this summer I'm going to set up a hog. Real money in hogs, +Mr. Nikolai! Of course the house is pretty old-timey and plain,"--he +indicated the low ceilings and deep-set, many-paned windows--"but Joan +likes old-timey things. She says this is a country cousin to that old +place I used to live in on Poplar Street. Says a house without any +ghosts in it is as uninteresting as a house without any books in it." +(Archie was always fond of quoting the sayings of his Joan.) + +"You do not miss people?" Nikolai asked her, recalling how easily the +young American had made her place in what is perhaps the most finished +society in the world. + +"I have no chance to. We have neighbors enough--nice country women who +exchange patterns and recipes and cuttings with me, and even a book now +and then. If I want another sort, it is easy enough to run into town--or +even on to New York, now that I've the excuse of publishers to be seen! +And lately the town has begun to come out to me. Not at first. Emily and +the others had a good deal to say about the folly of burying oneself in +the country. You see this is not Country Club or golf-course country. +But now I notice that they're glad enough to come whenever I ask +them--or even when I don't!--Oh, the peace of it, Stefan! At night you +can positively hear the silence." + + "Amid the darkness that we feel is green," + +he said. + +She nodded. "And no formal callers to interrupt, and no ridiculous +competitions with Mrs. Websters--I think people are more themselves in +the country, somehow. Kentucky people, at any rate. Your Kentuckian does +not run quite true to type herded in masses." + +"Hear the wise authorine!" beamed Archie. + +"Perhaps that is true of all Anglo-Saxons," she went on, unheeding. +"They need to get their roots into the soil." + +"Not only of Anglo-Saxons, Joan--of Semitic people, of all people, I +think," said Nikolai. "Humanity began in a garden, if we may believe our +myths. And with all races the dream of the ultimate Paradise is a +garden." + +"Why don't you put some roots out yourself?" asked Archie, eagerly. +"There's a lot of good land about here for sale cheap. Why don't you buy +some and settle down near us?" + +"Oh, do!" urged Joan. "What a splendid idea!" + +He looked from one to the other, the slight flush that had risen to his +face dying away. + +"Thank you," he said quietly. "Thank you, my friends. Perhaps--some +day." + +Joan remembered that he had spoken once of his intention to settle down +near her and grow up with her children, "when he was old enough." + +Surely, she thought (quite unaware of any cruelty in her thought) he was +old enough now! + +Her eyes had been making their usual running commentary on the +conversation, quick blue flashes, grave or merry or reassuring, that +always spoke to Nikolai more clearly than her words. But presently he +noticed in them a return of the preoccupation, the vague dreaminess, +that had been about her when she first appeared. + +"Your mind is at that typewriter," he accused her suddenly. + +"Of course it is," complained Archie. "She'd be at the thing all day +long, if I didn't drag her out in the fields occasionally to work!" + +"Archie thinks writing is not work," she interpolated, "merely an +elegant way of passing a lady's leisure, like embroidery or +crocheting!--But I'm not always as bad as this, Stefan," she apologized. +"It's just that a crisis is on the way, and thoughts seem to come faster +than I can get them down.--Luckily for you I've got a public now to +spill them onto, instead of you!" + +"Do you find the public as responsive?" + +"_Does_ she!" cried the proud husband. "Letters in every mail, and +requests for autographs--why, she's a public character! The other day in +a street-car--Tell him what happened the other day in the street-car, +Joan." + +She pulled his hair, laughing. "Ain't I the most wonder-fullest +boy?--Well, the other day in a street-car, Stefan, a perfectly strange +man came up to me and said, 'Aren't you the Mrs. Blair who writes? Say, +what business have _you_ got knowing how scared a man is of his grown +son? You're only a girl.'" + +"I congratulate you," said Nikolai. "Yes, that is response. Taking the +world into your circle of intimates--that is the thing that makes the +game worth while for people like you and me." + +"Don't include me with yourself," she protested in quick deprecation. +"I'm not and never shall be 'literary.' Human nature is all I'm after, +Stefan. Villains who won't stay villains; heroes with fatal flaws of +character; good, fine, noble natures who spread havoc all about +'em--that's the sort of thing I want to do; never 'literature'!" + +He smiled, nodding. "Spoken like a true Cobzar!--But at that rate you'll +find it difficult to escape literature, my dear." He rose to leave, +against protests. "No, no, I have no intention of sharing honors with a +Climax. Let me come back to-morrow, when the crisis is out of her +system. I know how that is!" + +"You always know how things are," murmured Joan gratefully, pressing his +hand.... + +Archie walked with him to the car-station. + +"You think she's looking well, sir?" he asked as soon as they were out +of earshot. + +"Better than well, Blair. Content." + +The husband sighed with satisfaction. "I think so myself--though of +course it's the kid who's done that, not me--Mr. Nikolai, I've got to +talk to you on business. How big a hurry are you in for that money you +lent me?" + +"None at all," answered the other pleasantly. "I've accumulated a good +deal of moss for such a rolling-stone--a racial trait, perhaps! Take +your time. You've already paid me more than half, I think." + +"Joan's book did most of that, not me," admitted Archie, flushing. +"Though of course I'm going to pay her back." + +"Don't," said the other. + +"_Don't!_ Why not?" + +"Our only hold upon such as Joan is--our need of them." + +Archie ruminated upon this in silence. "I get you," he said at last. +"Let 'em think we're sort of helpless, like--like children, eh? But it's +pretty hard accepting money from a woman!" + +"Why? When we have consented to accept life itself from a woman--Where +there is love there is no debt, Blair!" + +"I guess that's right," said Archie slowly. "What's mine is hers of +course; and so what's hers is mine--But speaking of the war--" + +It happened that they had not been speaking of the war at all, though it +hung in the background of their talk, grim and menacing, as it hung in +the background of all talk just then. + +"Yes, Blair?" + +"We're getting into it at last, thank God! And as soon as we do, I'm +going." + +"Of course," said Nikolai. + +Archie turned to him eagerly. "You think I've got a right to go?" + +"So much of a right that I've come out here largely to see how I can +help you--Of course you know," he added after a moment's hesitation, +"that anything I have will go some day to my namesake Stefan?" + +"Say, that's great!" cried Archie, beaming. "That makes me mighty easy +about the future! And the present's all right, too. I'm pretty sure of +getting a commission, and Joan makes more money than I do now. The thing +that's been troubling me is wondering how _you'd_ ever get paid back.... +I'm pretty tall for the trenches," he explained. "And I seem to get sort +of careless when I'm excited--the Irish coming out on me, I reckon. The +chances are against my coming back. And in that case all you'd get would +be--Joan." + +A silence fell. + +"And the kid, of course--He's a pretty nice little fellow," Archie added +tentatively. "I don't suppose he'd be much of a--drawback?" + +"On the contrary," said Nikolai. "I think he might be considered +interest on the investment!" + +Archie laughed with relief. + +"I tell you, it makes me feel pretty comfortable to know that whatever +happens to me they'll be safe! And to know that you'll be taking care of +her, sir. She needs a good deal of taking care of, too--though she don't +know it. Thinks she's as independent as a little pig on ice. But they're +none of 'em independent, Mr. Nikolai--take it from me! They've got to be +humored, and teased, and exercised, and petted--and the smarter they are +the more petting they need. This high-brow business seems to leave +people sort of lonesome in their hearts--you know what I mean?" + +"Yes," said Nikolai, "I know what you mean--I shall accept your legacy +gladly, Blair, if I am here to accept it. But--I am going to the war, +myself. Not into the trenches, no. Into Russia." + +Archie protested as Joan had. "But I thought Russia was not safe for +you!" + +"It is not. Nor for anybody else just now. There is something brewing +there. You will see. And I think perhaps I can do a little something for +both my countries, the new and the old. That is why I have come to +America; to arrange my affairs, and to--say good-by." + +"I get you," said Archie, simply, and held out his hand. His face had +fallen. "Gee, supposing neither of us comes back? What will she do +then?" + +Nikolai gravely smiled. "Listen!" he said. + +Through the hush of the still afternoon came to their ears, faint but +distinct, the steady clicking of a typewriter. + +"That is what she will do, my friend, with us or without. She has +graduated from you and me--from herself as well. She has turned from men +to Man; and of him the supply is inexhaustible." + +Archie sighed, a little jealously. "You gave her that! You've given her +almost everything she values, sir, haven't you?" + +"Not quite everything, Blair." + +Archie's eyes brightened. He remembered then the thing the other had not +given her: their boy. + + * * * * * + +It was a scene that etched itself upon Nikolai's memory as he stood +there waiting for his car, one of those pictures the heart carries with +it into far places, and forever; the pleasant, homely cottage among its +flowers and gnarled apple-trees, children's voices prattling about, the +smell of cooking pickle in the air, Archie's cheery, retreating whistle, +and dominating all the eager clicking of a typewriter. + +His eyes followed the broad shoulders of the younger man, swinging along +the road to the brisk, martial tread all young men have learned +latterly.... Nikolai's life had thrown him into contact with all phases +of the human problem, low and high. He knew how inextricably the two are +mingled. Heroism, self-sacrifice, he had found in the most unlikely +places, and thrilled to them as a fighting nature thrills to the drum. +It hurt him to realize that the finest heroism, the most exquisite +sacrifice, must always be hidden things, hidden often even from the eyes +of him who sacrifices. Archibald Blair, failure in all that the world +finds important, would have called himself undoubtedly a poor stick. +Only to the occasional eye did he loom a hero. + +Nikolai looked after him sadly, listening to the steady click of that +typewriter. At last he quoted to himself, with a shrug, + + "Meurs, parce que j'ai besoin de chanter la mort pour mes chansons."[1] + +Between them, he knew, they would manage to serve Joan's needs to the +end. + + +THE END + +[Footnote: 1 "Die, for I have need to sing of death in my songs."] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Why Joan?, by Eleanor Mercein Kelly + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHY JOAN? *** + +***** This file should be named 34801.txt or 34801.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/8/0/34801/ + +Produced by David Garcia, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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